No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 329 



The following statement shows the number of counties in which 

 instructors have been employed each year since the inception of 

 the scheme: 



Year. Counties at work. 



1900-1 1 



l!(01-2 4 



1902-a 11 



19034 18 



1904-5 22 



1905-6 24 



This report ought to be of service to those of our people in the 

 United States who are endeavoring to secure a better agriculture 

 for her citizens. It points the way to increased and more profitable 

 production. It has brought the wheat crop of Ireland to 37.8 bushels 

 per acre, rye to 27, barley to 46, oats to 57, and potatoes to 207, 

 not to speak of the fruit, dairy and poultry industries which have 

 all in like manner been greatly advanced. 



GOVERNMENT AID. 



In Ireland and in the other foreign countries work of this char- 

 acter is undertaken by the Government. In some countries it is 

 conducted almost wholly under central governmental auspices. In 

 others it is in cooperation with provincial Governments and 

 local societies, but in every case the introduction of the system 

 has been through central governmental initiative and control, as 

 in England, France, Germany, Italy and other European countries, 

 with uniformly highly beneficial results, as the agricultural produc- 

 tion of these countries demonstrates. 



In the United States we have depended largely for the dissemina- 

 tion of agricultural information upon bulletins and the columns 

 of the public press. While these agencies are absolutely essential 

 they of themselves are comparatively helpless to secure such 

 changes as are needed in the practice of the individual farmer whose 

 education has been limited, and whose opportunities for observa- 

 tion have been few. 



When it is remembered that 94 per cent, of the population of 

 the United States are restricted in their education to that given by 

 the common schools it is little wonder that agricultural knowledge 

 among rural people is limited largely to traditional methods. If 

 agriculture is to be improved it is absolutely necessary that this 

 great body of workers, 94 per cent, of our population, shall have 

 the advantage of the discoveries of modern science along the lines 

 of increasing production, and it is becoming very clear that there 

 is no way by which this can be so rapidly and economically effected 

 as through the sending of expert teachers to instruct them by meet- 

 ing them at their homes. The experience of every European coun- 

 try has confirmed this view, and their practice for many years has 

 been chiefly confined to this method of imparting information with 

 the remarkable results to which attention has been called. 



Whih^ this work is properly that of the several States both as 

 to its control and operation, and would finally be lodged with them, 

 yet in order to introduce the system and show its practicability 

 and adapt it to the conditions which prevail in the United States, 

 much time would be gained and many mistakes avoided if the 

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