"Jl BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



Now, for the audience: With the best speaker in the 

 world some work has got to be done to secure an audience. 

 Now, first, where shall we go for the audience? I believe that 

 there is more actual good to agriculture by going away out of 

 the way from the larger towns and holding your institute out 

 in the little bits of places back from the railroad. That is an 

 old story; it is an old story in the West, I suppose it is here, 

 but it works admirably. In Wisconsin this plan has worked 

 very successfully. They attempt to give a small prize list. 

 They get the merchants and the business men interested in the 

 matter and ofifer small prizes for small products. That brings 

 in the people. It makes a little competition and excites their 

 interest. I see no reason why that plan should not work well 

 in Connecticut. 



In Maine quite an elaborate system was followed. When 

 they have decided where to hold their institutes they try to 

 get a man that travels among the farmers to advertise the 

 institute. They generally are able to get him. If they can- 

 not, they hire men. Those men drive around all over the 

 country, saying to the farmers, "Are you going to the institute? 

 Have you heard about it? John Smith and Sam Jones are 

 going to be there." They tell the farmers all about it. In 

 that way they send these men traveling all over the country 

 talking the institute wherever they go. As one of these men 

 goes over his route, he picks up a list of names of all the farm- 

 ers. Sometimes he gets four or five hundred. The list is 

 then sent down to Mr. True at Augusta, and he sends a printed 

 postal card, giving each one of those men a personal in- 

 vitation to attend the institute. Every man anywhere around 

 in the neighborhood where the institute is held gets one of 

 those cards. A pleasant, cordial invitation from the Hon. 

 Mr. True down at Augusta to come to the institute. Mr. 

 True says that that plan works admirably. When the farmer 

 gets the card, he thinks there must be something in it, 

 especially as he has received an invitation from the Hon. 



