246 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



motliers appeal to me to get their children into hospitals; I have 

 written several hundred letters and have some now awaiting reply. 

 I have tried to put my whole force, my whole life into this work; its 

 possibilities are unbounded, and its inspiration is absorbing. 



I am trying to raise |650 to pay off the mortgage on a farm in 

 Chester county, so that they may keep their little home. I am rais- 

 ing funds for a tubercular patient, and for a children's hospital. I 

 have women appeal to me to know how to take care of the baby's 

 bottle and how to cure a smoky chimney. How to take care of a 

 half-grown girl; how to manage their husbands (of course I can al- 

 ways tell them that). Appeals from women who are physically in- 

 firm and whose husbands love them dearly, but don't know how to 

 help them. I cannot begin to tell you what I have done, nor the 

 range of these appeals, but I want to go right straight on. 



5. MR. FUNK: Fellow Institute Workers: As many of you 

 know, I was brought up on a truck farm, and I thought I knew what 

 a year's work was, but I have just found out. I worked harder these 

 past few months than I ever did in my life; answered several hun- 

 dred letters, made several hundred calls, worked all day, and often 

 late at night. Although the work has been very hard, I have en- 

 joyed it very much, and I hope I have done some good. My line, as 

 you know, included both orchard and small fruits, and I have also 

 done some greenhouse work. You people who do not travel over the 

 State of Pennsylvania would be surprised at the great number of 

 demands in the fruit business. Men get the fever, and stick a few 

 trees in the ground, and then go and sit on the back porch to wait 

 until the fruit ripens. They don't know the first thing about their 

 trees; T often have to do their pruning for them to show them how 

 to do it. I have done some Institute work along this line, but find 

 that this new work is more satisfactory in every way. It brings you 

 right on the ground, and it seems to me that the farmers of Penn- 

 sylvania must all come from Missouri, they don't want you to tell 

 them; they want you to show them. It is a whole lot easier to go 

 out into tile orchard, and show a fellow how to prune his tree, than 

 it is to tell him, and when I go into the orchard, I often find two, 

 or three or four fellows there, who want to see how it is done, and I 

 go ahead and show them. 



Now, thino^ have not always been satisfactory. Dr. Conard says 

 they don't always take his advice, and they have not always taken 

 mine. Suppose they got too busy; but when I came back, they were 

 ashamed to go out into the orchard. In many cases I have done 

 very well, but not in all cases. All things considered, I have done 

 very well, and have done a great deal of work, and there is still a 

 great deal to be done. Sometimes I can make two, or three, or even 

 four calls in a single day, and in that way cover a lot of ground, 

 which makes it very much safer. You can do a great deal more work 

 without working any harder. 



6. MR. KESTER: To state what I have been doing, and how 

 many times I have been called in, or how many letters T have an- 

 swered, would take up entirely too much time, so I will simply say 

 that T have been exceedingly busy both in correspondence and per- 



