376 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



labor is broad and the laborers are few, but ideas of higher and intellectual 

 attainment are rapidly gaining ground, and it is only a question of time 

 when the majority of the young will avail themselves of the opportunity for 

 a higher education which is now so freely offered by the public institutions 

 of our State. *********** 



QUESTION BOX. 



Question: Why can't we have a farmers' institute here every year? 



Mr. : At the institute held here by the College 12 years ago an 



organization was created for the purpose of holding annual institutes and 

 there was one held the year following, but the attendance was light and the 

 thing dropped there. 



Hon. Thos. Mars : Twelve or thirteen years ago, at our place, we had a 

 State institute, at the close of which we appointed a committee, with presi- 

 dent, secretary, and executive committee of five, and have held an institute 

 each year since, and all very successful, this year with an attendance of 400 

 for each of eight sessions, and I would recommend every county in the State 

 to follow this plan. 



Prof. Cook : It seems to me that our institutes fail of their purpose unless 

 they result in a continuing series of institutes. In Kalamazoo county they 

 circulate around from town to town, and are most successful. 



Question : What can we use in the place of clover to keep up our lands? 



Lieut. Simpson: In Arizona they grow alfalfa that cuts five crops a year 

 -of two tons per acre each. 



Dr. Beal : Alfalfa takes two years to get going. It wants deep, open, por- 

 ous soil without clay bottom, and must be sown alone. Perhaps you fail 

 with clover because you sow it with other crops; try it alone. 



Mr. Sharp : I tried that on my thinnest and poorest land that had been in 

 corn two years. Plowed in fall and dragged. Sowed in April and dragged 

 afterwards with slant-tooth harrow, and it succeeded very well indeed. It 

 first came with some patches of sorrel, but it got the better of that after- 

 wards. On our good lands I think we need have no trouble, but on poor 

 land we must sow it alone. 



Prof. Cook : I want to seed clover and timothy with wheat, but think it 

 can only be done with liberal stable manuring. On a piece of mine where a 

 strip was accidentally neglected in timothy sowing the clover was very much 

 better than over most of the field. 



Dr. Beal : Don't forget that June clover is biennial and will die out after 

 the second year unless allowed to go to seed and thus reseed itself. 



Question : How can we clear an 80 acre farm of a $2,000 mortgage? 



Dr. Beal : A Barry county farmer had a $2,500 mortgage. He sent his 

 boy to the Agricultural College, and then by his help on the farm paid off 

 the mortgage and bought another 40 acres, and they are now clear of debt 

 and prospering — this by selling milk and making maple syrup. 



Mr. Sharp : Any good man can pay off a $2,000 mortgage from 80 acres of 

 good land in St. Joe county. 



Question: Can grain be p&fitably grown without a well-fed manure pile? 



Prof. Cook: In the New York institutes their main topic of conversation 

 is how to develop the manure pile, and they discuss feeds as much with ref- 

 erence to their value for manure as for beef making. 



