744 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



visited or the number of children in attendance. It is safe, how- 

 ever from the data furnished, to assume that at least 100,000 school 

 cliildren were visited by a;!:ricultural experts during the year and 

 given some instruction in rural alFairs. 



Fourteen States lickl 288 independent institutes, attended by 94,523 

 persons. Sixteen States held 138 sessions of round-up meetings, with 

 an attendance of 42,141. Two sijecial-subject institutes were re- 

 ported, witli an attendance of 1,600, and two States reported picnics, 

 with an attendance of 15,241, addressed by institute lecturers, while 

 one State reports a normal class consisting of 147 persons for the 

 instruction of teachers. 



The total reported attendance at all institutes, both regular and 

 special, for the year was 2,GGG,940. If the States not yet reporting 

 show an attendance at their regular institutes equal to that of the 

 year before, the total will be over 2,700.000. 



The agricultural colleges and experiment stations have continued 

 to aid the institutes by detailing members of their faculties and sta- 

 tion staffs for lecture service. Four hundred and eighteen of these 

 lecturers, representing the agricultural colleges and experiment sta- 

 tions in 35 States, were engaged in institute work last year. Thirty 

 of these States report the days of service contributed by the lecturers 

 at 3,755. In the previous year 43 States reported 459 college and 

 station men engaged in this work, and of these States 34 reported 

 the days contribuled at 3,381. It will thus be seen that there has 

 been a considerably larger contribution of time to institute work 

 during the past year by the colleges and stations than was the case 

 during the year before. 



The rapid growth of the farmers' institute movement in this coun- 

 try compels attention to the immediate need for more qualified teach- 

 ers to give instruction in agricultural institutes, colleges, and schools. 

 The lack of a sufficient number of capable agricultural instructors, 

 particularly for peripatetic work, is now seriously felt in all of the 

 States, and unless some effective method is devised and introduced 

 for enlarging the number more rapidly than existing agencies have 

 hitherto done a most embarrassing situation will confront those who 

 are responsible for this instruction. There is immediate need for a 

 careful study of this problem with a view to its solution. 



Women's institutes are just now beginning their development. In- 

 stitutes for young people can scarcely be said to be started, but are 

 an acknowledged and immediate necessity. Peripatetic work in agri- 

 culture along demonstration and advisory lines must be undertaken 

 in the near future and be promoted in a vigorous and extensive way 

 if agriculture is to progress as rapidly as the necessities of the people 

 require. These new lines of effort Avill not only require a large num- 

 ber of men and women in addition to those noAV engaged in school, 

 college, and station work to conduct them, but they will demand a 

 different kind of educated man than the institutions responsible for 

 agricultural education have hitherto produced. The future teacher 

 who is to occupy this field must have wide and successful experience 

 in the practical side of the subject that he is to present if he is to be 

 a capable and safe adviser of other men. 



To devise a method that will supply such men in large numbers, 

 who will be willing to devote their time to agricultural teaching and 

 the dissemination of agricultural information, is the next great prob- 



