OFFICE OF EXPEKIMENT STATIONS. 257 



FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



In my last annual report I recommended that an appropriation of 

 $5,000 be asked for to enable this Office to undertake the work con- 

 nected with the promotion of the farmers' institute system in this 

 country. The appropriation was to be used in employing an officer 

 who would devote his time and energy to this work, visit institute 

 workers and advise them regarding the ways in which the Depart- 

 ment might help the institutes, study the problems of institute man- 

 agement at home and abroad, and seek to shape the Department's 

 work for the institutes so that it might be most helpful to this enter- 

 prise. As the matter was finally fixed in the appropriation act, only 

 about $2,000 of the income of this Office for the current fiscal year 

 can be used for this purpose. This is entirely inadequate for the 

 work planned, but will be used in gathering statistics of the institute 

 movement and in employing, during a part of the year, an officer who 

 will be retained as the farmers' institute specialist of this Office, if 

 Congress shall provide sufficient means for continuing the work. 



At the seventh annual meeting of the American Association of 

 Farmers' Institute Workers, held in this city June 24-20, the plans of 

 this Office for aiding the farmers' institute movement were explained 

 to the members and their hearty approval of the scheme was expressed 

 by the unanimous adoption of the following resolution : 



Resolved, That the American Association of Farmers' Institute Workers cor- 

 dially and most heartily approve the action that has been initiated by the Secretary 

 of Agriculture in the matter of closer communication between the Department 

 and the farmers' institutes, with the hope that an agent will be appointed as svig- 

 gested in Dr. True's paper. 



Farmers' institutes are now held in 44 States and Territories, includ- 

 ing Hawaii. Nearly complete returns from 40 States and Territories 

 show that in the areas reported about 2,300 institutes are held annu- 

 ally ; that the funds expended by the different States and Territories 

 in support of these institutes (not including expenses incurred by 

 local authorities) amount to about $196,000 per annum, and that about 

 709,000 people attend the institutes. The number of students taking 

 the agricultural course at the agricultural colleges in Ihese same States 

 and Territories during the year ended June 30, 1901, was 9,023, includ- 

 ing those who are recorded as attending courses in household econ- 

 omy, dairying, and veterinary science. 



The total number of jjersons reached by the farmers' institutes and 

 the agricultural colleges (about 720,000) is, however, only a small per- 

 centage (7.2 per cent^ of those actually engaged in agricultural pur- 

 suits (about 10,000,000). The publications of the expei-iment stations 

 are sent to about 500,000 farmers, A great need of our educational 

 system is, therefore, wider dissemination of the results of agricultural 

 study and research among those now actually engaged in farming. 

 In the nature of the case the various agricultural colleges and exj)eri- 

 ment stations can directly reach only a comparatively limited number 

 of the younger men whose influence will be felt largely in the imj)rove- 

 ment of the agriculture of the future. The greatest good can not be 

 accomplished, therefore, unless more is done to improve the agricul- 

 tural practice of the present. No more effective means than the farm- 

 ers' institutes has been found for the broad dissemination of reliable 

 agricultural information in such a way as to make it available for the 

 immediate use of the practical farmer. 



To an institution of such wide extent and universal importance this 



AGR 1902 17 



