No. 5. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 239 



to the great mass of farmers in order that they may put into prac- 

 tice the most improved methods in farming. The work of the 

 Farmers' Institute is a vast one, and its possibilities, and money 

 needed to carry it on, are so great as to make the teaching of agri- 

 culture within our agricultural colleges almost insigniflcent in com- 

 parison, for we have several thousand men actually engaged in agri- 

 cultural work on our farms for each boy that is being taught in our 

 own State College. 



THE HOME 



No session of the Institute creates more interest or is productive 

 of more good than the one pertaining to the home. The immortal 

 Grady said, "The home is the strength of the American Repub- 

 lic." It is important then that more attention should be given to 

 the home, and all that pertains to the home. The home is the 

 source of all that is good, and much that is bad. From the homes of 

 today must come the men and women of tomorrow. Make the home 

 life right and the church life and the school life will be right, and 

 when these are right, any State or Nation has a citizenship of which 

 it may justly feel proud. 



CONCLUSION 



The work of the Grange and the Institute in the past has been 

 pleasant and harmonious and I trust that it will continue to be so 

 in the future. While each has a specific work to do, yet the end 

 sought and the results obtained, are in the main identical. T should 

 like to see these two great forces for human betterment bound more 

 closely together. I believe the time has come for a federation of 

 all organizations that work to promote the human welfare. There 

 should be no working at cross-purposes, nor pulling apart, but all 

 should work hand in hand in building up strong agricultural com- 

 munities and in establishing a permanent agriculture. 



HOW CAN COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES BECOME 



MORE EFFECTIVE IN FURTHERING FARMERS' 



INSTITUTE WORK? 



By PROF. FRANKLIN MENGES, York, Pa. 



Pennsylvania is the oldest agricultural state in the Union, with 

 the exception of, possibly, Virginia, and the oldest county, and 

 county organization in the United States was organized in Penn- 

 sylvania in 1787, and if I am not very much mistaken, it was organ- 

 ized in the city of Philadelphia, and the members were Quakers. Now 

 I do not know just what the association was; Mrs. Lyon can probably 

 tell you. I have been unable to get very much of its early history, 

 but it is the oldest county organization in the United States. The 



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