No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 115 



MR. McCLELLAN; I hardiy see bow you could get a closer relation 

 between the farmer and the State Board than you have now. 1 

 think about the only law you could ask for would be, like the 

 school law, get a compulsory law, compelling them all to come out. 



MR. JAEKEL: I am not in the habit of making any remarks, but 

 I would like to say with regard to this question, that the blame rests 

 with the farmer; it does not rest on the members of the State Board. 

 You can look over the reports that have been issued for years by the 

 Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, and you will find that 

 the members of the State Board for years and years did the very best 

 they could do. That they are, in fact, in close connection with the 

 farmers, I know from my own county. I also know that a great many 

 so-called agricultural societies do not consist wholly of farmers. To 

 investigate that would require a long time, for the reason that there 

 are so few farmers in some of the agricultural societies, at least in 

 my part of the country; but the reports of the Secretary of the State 

 Board, all publications which are issued by the State or from Wash- 

 ington, are advantageously distributed in our county at least. If 

 there are some failures in other counties to properly distribute, the 

 members of the State Board should not be accused of not doing their 

 duty. They have done it, and if they are hindered by some cause or 

 other, it is not their fault that they are not doing more. 



MR. NORTHUP: This matter of discussion does not so much relate 

 to Lackawanna county as it does to other counties, that is, that the 

 agricultural societies of some counties are composed of a class of men 

 who are not farmers. In Lackawanna county we have a little strife 

 on this line. You know that we have what is called the Agricultural 

 Fair up in that county; that is, a horse-trotting arrangement, and 

 a gathering of gamblers, and they have had quite a pull with us. Y^ou 

 know there is a law that grants |100 to a county for the purpose of 

 giving agricultural information. They wanted that hundred dollars 

 from our county. There are lawyers and politicians in that organiza- 

 tion and there is not much farming about it, but they have a horse- 

 trot and have a good time, and they have that woman that goes 

 around over the country and smashes saloons, to get up an excite- 

 ment and to draw the crowd. If they had succeeded in getting that 

 hundred dollars, we would not have had any farmers in our organi- 

 zation, but we have stuck to it that it belonged to us as farmers; that 

 we were the original organization in Lackawanna county, and that 

 we should represent ourselves on the State Board of Agriculture, 

 and we have not got a man in the Lackawanna Agricultural Society 

 to-day that is not a farmer; we have not got a member of our com- 

 mittee that is not a farmer, and I am glad to stand up for our county 

 and say we are represented by farmers. If there are any counties in 

 the State of Pennsylvania that are represented by this class of horse- 



