No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 337 



caclj year as our delegates to State College, at the commencement 

 exercises, and pay their car fare. They seem pleased to go, and 

 this makes a nice little outing. The importance of their work as 

 committeemen cannot be estimated. They are always helpful to 

 the chairman and his assistant. With the exception of our first 

 and last days of the twelve, we are usually holding two institutes 

 each day. This makes an abundance of work, and only for the as- 

 sistance of these helpers we never could make things harmonize and 

 succeed. This is carrying on the farmers' institute on business 

 principles, and it works all right. It is said of a certain general, 

 in the fierceness of a struggle, when the battle was raging, he took 

 in the situation with his field-glass and saw that his troops were re- 

 treating. He stood erect in his saddle, and shouted at the top of 

 his voice: ''The eye of your commander is upon you; he expects you 

 to conquer or die." His subordinate passed those words down the 

 lines, and sudden defeat was turned into a grand victory. The 

 same is true with the active institute chairman. In the time of 

 emergency his committeemen gather around him and bring sure 

 success and victory out of defeat. They are not to be dispensed 

 with in their valuable services in carrying forward this institute 

 work. They stimulate an interest in speaking to their neighboring 

 farmers about improved methods of conducting farm work, and in- 

 spire them with an interest to be present at the yearly gathering 

 when the farmers' institute is to be held. They tell them about the 

 different speakers that are coming, and that they do not want to 

 miss the opportunity of hearing them. All these things work to- 

 gether for good and are helpful to the agricultural interests of the 

 county. When the farmers' institute is held at a place where there 

 is no public house to entertain the speakers and other strangers, 

 then they come up heartily and meet the emergency by inviting these 

 to partake of the hospitality of their own farm homes. It is often 

 a very elaborate entertainment, too, for the farmer of to-day 

 dwells in comfortable quarters, and he is prepared to make others 

 comfortable. In this institute work the committeeman himself is 

 more largely benefited than any other farmer, from the fact that 

 he is doubly interested. He spends more time in investigation and 

 study which tends to make him an apt scholar when opportunity 

 favors. In our county, we had a progressive farmer who was a 

 dairyman, but he had limited advantages in seeking an education. 

 He came to the farmers' institute and afterward was made a com- 

 mitteeman. He heard Prof. Watson, of State College, speak at 

 Moscow on, ''The Selection of a Dairy and the Feeding of a Balanced 

 Ration." He became doubly interested and immediately sent to the 

 College and got a bulletin on cattle feeds. This he studied by lamp- 

 light many times until the midnight hour. To-day he can formulate 

 22^7—1904 



