No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 215 



THE TRAINING OP THE FARMER 



But the next question that is in the mind of everyone is, How 

 shall the farmer get the training for the business transactions and 

 the manufacturing involved in such a scheme? This is the crux of 

 the situation and one that will have to be met and answered by our 

 agricultural educators. First, by the lecturers at Farmers' Insti- 

 tutes because it is they, though I am sorry to say in a limited way, 

 that bring the college to the average farmer. But this is only the 

 merest beginning, and the next agents are the Departments of 

 Agriculture of both Estate and Nation; but over and above all is 

 the Experiment Station and the Agricultural College. Up to this 

 time the Experiment Stations have confined their energies largely 

 to the production of two blades of grass where one grew before, not 

 that it was the desire to do this by those who were managing the 

 work, but verv often largelv on account of the indifference of the 

 farmer and the agricultural interests of the State to supply funds 

 for the work, and where funds were available men could not be got- 

 ten to give the kind of instruction needed. We know that not by 

 any means all the waste on the farm is in production, but that 

 sometimes more v/aste occurs in the marketing and utilization of 

 the products of the soil. The investigations at tlie Experiment Sta- 

 tion should therefore include agricultural, manufacturing and the 

 utilization on the farm of all waste products in the best way pos- 

 sible. This is an enormous field and a simple enumeration of all it 

 involves is impossible. But the Agricultural College must also 

 train the teachers to begin this kind of vocational instruction in our 

 public schools. She must teach methods to increase production, 

 methods to prevent the waste that is going on on the farm, methods 

 of agricultural manufacturing, methods of utilizing the various 

 kinds of power at the command of the farmer, methods for the best 

 utilization of the various soils of a community, methods of pro- 

 ducing and growing more efficient animals on the farm. She should 

 have a Department of Economics which should be so directed that 

 it would cover the field of transportation, manufacturing and 

 market, etc., as these relate to the farmer and the workman of 

 these various communities, a Department of Sociology, a Depart- 

 ment of Agricultural Architecture, a Department of Agricultural 

 Sanitation, but over and above all, a department for raising better 

 men and women on the farm. 



Let the Normal Institute resolve to begin a movement to so equip 

 our Agricultural College and Experiment Station with facilities 

 for instructing students in the elements of these various activities, 

 whom she may send forth from her halls and fields to impart these 

 elements of vocational training in our public schools so that the 

 future farmer will be the master he should be instead of the servant 

 he otherwise will be. 



