RELATION OF EXTENSION AGENCIES TO FARM PRACTICE. 



17 



following list, compiled from the reports of the New York farmers, 

 is fairly typical of all the States in proportion to the numbers vis- 

 ited. It shows well the wide variety of matters which the different 

 farmers have been able to obtain from the bulletins and put into 

 actual practice. 



SPECIFIC THINGS DONE BY FARMERS AS A RESULT OF READING BULLETINS. 



Conserving moisture by tillage, building henhouses, seed testing, feeding dairy 

 cows, oat culture, potato culture, use of feed analyses, feeding poultry, care of 

 horses, care of milk, use of lime, top-dressing, tile drainage, seed-corn selection, 

 use of commercial fertilizer, spraying fruit, crop rotation, thorough cultivation, 

 treating oats for smut, care of poultry, alfalfa culture, corn culture, raising 

 guinea fowls, whitewashing stables, stable construction, strawberry culture, 

 spraying potatoes, using balanced rations, the farm garden, culture of beans and 

 buckwheat, growing soy beans with corn, inoculating clover, cabbage culture, 

 spraying wild mustard, cutting up beef and pork, spraying melons, sugar-beet 

 growing, pasture seeding, growing millet, growing oats and peas together, use 

 of cover crops, treating potatoes for scab, the home mixing of fertilizers, etc. 



INFLUENCE OF FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



The farmers 1 institute plays an important part in the agriculture 

 of many sections. The table below summarizes the results of the 

 survey with reference to this form of extension work. 



Table II. — Nvmber and percentages of farmers attending farmers' institutes 

 and putting into practice things teamed there. 



Of the 3,698 farmers visited, 1,105, or practically 30 per cent, 

 attend farmers' institutes. Of this number 596, or 54 per cent, have 

 put into practice in their farm work suggestions heard at the institute. 



Table II indicates that about one farmer in six, as covered by the 

 survey, is being effectively reached by the farmers' institute. If 

 compared by sections, however, it is seen that in the North Atlantic 

 and North-Central States about one farmer in four is effectively 

 reached, while in the Southern States but one farmer in 166 is 

 influenced to action by the farmers' institute, due to the fact that 

 the institute has not been extensively developed in that section. 



[Cir. 117] 



