No. 7. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 329 



.•!' Agriculture could do but very little. We are all liable to make 

 mistakes; it would be strange if we did not. 



This subject of the management of institutes in the separate coun- 

 ties, in my opinion, ought to have been brought up when we had the 

 greatest number of chairmen present; but as it was not taken up, 

 and we have been continuing these sessions for several days already, 

 A'e can't blame our people if they wanted to get off home, and I am 

 going to make a very short matter of this, and then we will listen 

 to the discussions of others afterwards. I supposed that, probably, 

 the Director would want to publish what we had to say on these 

 lines, and so I wrote out a few thoughts. 



Mr. Sexton then read the following paper: 



TOE COUNTY CHAIRMAN. 



BY Hon. Jason Sexton, North Wales, Pa. 



That the success of our farmers' institutes depends largely upon 

 the work done and interest taken by the county chairmen, is ad- 

 mitted by all institute workers, as well as by the farmers and gen- 

 eral public who attend. The Department of Agriculture and the 

 Director of Farmers' Institutes may do all in their power to aid us 

 in the separate counties by sending us competent lecturers and 

 practical farmers to teach our people and give instruction in our 

 separate lines of work on the farm (and no State sends out to its 

 Farmers' Institutes a more practical and better equipped set of 

 men), yet I am convinced that their usefulness is often curtailed 

 and the practical results at many institutes falls far short of what 

 they should and would be, if the chairman of the board of managers 

 was always the right man in the right place. I know these men 

 who come to us as teachers are not slow to observe, as they reach 

 the localities where the institutes are to be held, whether the 

 men who have the institutes in charge, and are largely responsible 

 for their success have taken the interest they should and prepared 

 the way, not only to properly receive the speakers sent by the 

 Director, but whether the farmers, large and small, with their 

 families, have had notice of these meetings and been invited and 

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