No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 273 



speak at these institutes, our thought should be "How shall we most 

 benefit the farmer?" That word ''most" comes in here, and it mabes 

 a material difference in what the proceedings of the meeting shall 

 be. Now, you know that in a horse race, it is the thoroughbred 

 horse that comes out ahead; and it is the boy who makes the least 

 mistakes in his spelling that wins the prize, and it is the little 

 things that help the farmers, and while it may make but little differ- 

 ence to the Department, and to the Secretary of Agriculture in 

 making up the program, it is the things that are to be^ discussed 

 that are of vital interest to the farmer. They may be topics in 

 which he is vitally interested. It is important to send to a com- 

 munity a man who can interest the people there in the things they 

 grow;. in a community devoted to fruit raising, or potato growing, it 

 is of the utmost importance to send a man who can discuss these 

 topics in an interesting way, and give the people the information 

 they need. 



Then it makes a material difference how this program is arranged 

 when it is to be presented to a Farmers' Institute. The county 

 chairman should consult his executive committee, and should sit 

 down and study over that program, and select his topics and his 

 speakers with great care; he should be acquainted with the lec- 

 turers, and know who will be most capable of filling the position for 

 which he wants them. Get your people interested in tbe institute ; 

 put them on the committees, and see that they take a part, and if 

 you succeed in getting the people interested in the success of the 

 institute it will be a success, and the farmers will be helped. 



Another part is the institute lecturers' part. That comes pretty 

 close home, and I tell you, I have felt many times that I was not 

 suflSeient for these things. I have felt the responsibility resting on 

 me when I stood up before five or six hundred people and told them 

 about agriculture. It is one of the most important interests in this 

 government, and when I feel the responsibility resting on me as I 

 stand there, I feel like putting into my talk all the energy and all 

 the knowledge I possess. How much is depending upon the insti- 

 tute lecturer! It is something more than merely standing up there 

 and talking to these people. I can't make a nice speech but I can 

 at least show sympathy, so that they can understand it, carry it 

 home. It is a little hard to get acquainted with some of these 

 people; they seem to be sort of afraid of a speaker who comes to 

 them from the department, but I generally manage to make their 

 acquaintance before the institute is over. I come down and shake 

 hands with them, and introduce myself, and pretty soon we are 

 acquainted. They don't introduce each other, but they look at each 

 other and edge a little closer, and by and by they are acquainted. 

 In order to benefit ^he farmer most, you must get into personal 

 touch with him, and you will pardon me if I refer to myself, and tell 

 you my method of reaching him. Generally, when I get up before 

 an audience, I begin to talk to them something like this: I tell them, 

 "you can see I am a farmer," — they will take a great deal more 

 from a man who is a farmer, than from one who is not — "nobody 

 ever would take me to be a lawyer or a preacher, or anything but 

 a brewer, perhaps, who consumes a great deal of Ms own product"; 



18—7—1908. 



