302 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



At the request of the Mississippi State Department of Public In- 

 struction the Service has begun the adaptation of the four units of 

 agriculture outlined for the accredited high schools in the South to 

 the Mississippi county agricultural schools. 



The problem in agricultural education studied in cooperation with 

 the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment 

 Stations was the relation of the work in agriculture in secondary 

 schools to college courses in agriculture. 



Special studies of the problems of visual instruction in agriculture 

 were begun and some additional sets of lantern slides were prepared 

 for instructional purposes. One set, worthy of special note, deals 

 in detail with school garden work in connection with teacher training 

 in a normal school, featuring how this work may be correlated with 

 such subjects in the course of study as arithmetic, drawing, and 

 language. 



INVESTIGATIONS ON FARMERS' INSTITUTES AND MOVABLE SCHOOLS. 



J. M. Stedman, Farmers' Institute Specialist. 



Farmers' institutes are conducted by the State departments of 

 agriculture in 24 States and by the agricultural colleges in 24 States. 

 The colleges are bringing their institutes into close relations with 

 their other extension work and making them more largely demonstra- 

 tional and educational. In the States where they are not under the 

 management of the colleges there is also a growing tendency to fit 

 them into the extension movement by cooperative arrangements with 

 the colleges or otherwise. The attendance at the institutes in the 

 United States last year aggregated about 3,000,000. 



Information regarding the institutes throughout the country was 

 collected and published during the past year as hitherto. 



The preparation of syllabi of lectures on agricultural and home 

 economics subjects, illustrated by appropriate sets of lantern slides, 

 was continued. Illustrated lectures were completed during the p*st 

 year on the production of alfalfa east of the one hundredth meridian, 

 cattle tick eradication, orchard management, corn production, and 

 how to make good farm butter for the South. Some of those for- 

 merly published have been revised and brought down to date. These 

 lectures are used not only by farmers' institute lecturers, but also 

 by county agricultural agents, extension workers in agricultural 

 colleges and schools, teachers of agriculture and home economics in 

 rural schools, etc. About 23,800 slides were loaned to nearly 500 

 applicants during the past year and over 100 applications were re- 

 fused because of the limited supply of slides. 



Courses of instruction to be used by self-instructed classes in 

 movable schools were prepared on soils and vegetable foods. 



In cooperation with the Office of Extension Work in the North 

 and West a study of the practical effects of county agent and 

 farmers' institute work was made in two counties by personal visita- 

 tion of a large number of the farmers residing there. 



