No. 7.^ DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 275 



question to any average audience, nine-tenths of tlie people would 

 hold up their hands when asked how many came in from the farm. 

 The boy and girl from the farm represent the warp and woof of the 

 city, and into their character is bred the unswerving character of the 

 farm. They leave the farm, and they leave the village for the city, 

 but the character and strength that they have gained on the farm 

 goes with them. Hence, my friends, the Farmers' Institute, in or- 

 der to accomplish the greatest good to the greatest number, must 

 not only introduce questions relative to farm life, and farm opera- 

 tions, and the cultivation of the soil, but it must go further and 

 deeper than that. The foundation on which we are built is the 

 cultivation of the intellect of the man, of the boy and girl, and it 

 is to cultivate this and broaden and deepen it that the institute 

 must labor. The education of the boy and girl is one of the greatest 

 questions which the Farmers' Institute has to consider. 



Last year Pennsylvania took a somewhat new departure in this 

 matter of education; we instituted, and have held four meetings 

 o.f what we call the "movable schools of agriculture." One w^as 

 held in Crawford county, in which we had a four-days' meeting. 

 The success was due to the thoroughness with which this meeting 

 was announced. A local manager was apopinted in the community, 

 who announced to the people the meetings, and the subjects to be 

 discussed by the speakers. They took up dairying and horticulture. 

 Then we held another one of the same kind in Bradford county, 

 and another in Cambria and another in Lancaster county. 

 Now^, the subjects taken up in these schools were pre- 

 pared in syllabus form and distributed some thirty days 

 before the time of meeting. When the schools came, they 

 found classes prepared for them from twenty-five up to as 

 high as seventy-five. The instructors w^ere experts in dairying, who 

 took up the work of handling the milk, and of handling the dairy, 

 and of ventilation and feed, of the dairy type of cow, of the Babcock 

 test in milk, developing an actual knowledge in the people engaged 

 in this line of work. 



Now, my friends, time will not permit us to dwell any longer on 

 this subject further than to say that we are entering upon a time, 

 where, if one of these schools is desired we can furnish you in- 

 structors versed in scientific investigation of his subject, to teach 

 these classes, taking four days from your regular institute course 

 for this purpose. We have at present three subjects; the first is 

 dairying; the second is horticulture, and the third, poultry. Now, 

 my friends, while we are carrying on more varied industries than 

 any state in the Union, these are the three leading agricultural in- 

 dustries, and for this reason we have selected them as the first 

 three on the schedule. 



There is one other question that I w^ant to take a minute to 

 inquire about, and that is in relation to the Pennsylvania State 

 College and Experiment Station. We have at the college a corps 

 of instructors in agriculture that is second to none in the country, 

 and we are devising ways and means by which they may join in 

 with this department in advancing this great cause of agriculture. 

 Beginning the 30th of December of this year, the college will have 

 another "Farmiers' Week," and all the farmers of the State are in- 



