244 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



It differs from the ordinary public school, as well as from the 

 normal school and college, in that it does not take up the system- 

 atic and exhaustive study of the topic which it undertakes to 

 teach, but merely calls attention to the valuable features which 

 the subject contains, and then refers the scholar to reliable publica- 

 tions, or other sources of information, for the more full, complete 

 and itemized verification of the facts. The Institute is not intended 

 to satisfy, but rather to excite, and stimulate inquiry. To raise 

 questions in the working farmer's mind that will give him no rest 

 until he shall have investigated them for himself, and has proven 

 to his own satisfaction by actual demonstration in the field, the 

 truth or falsity of that which he has been called upon to adopt. The 

 purpose of the Institute is to cause the farmer to think. To think 

 for himself, rather than to accept, without question, that which 

 others assert as being gospel truth. 



VALUE OF THE INSTITUTE. 



The value of the Farmers' Institutes has been fully demonstrated. 

 They started from small beginnings, and have been developed within 

 the past twenty years, until last year they were held in all of the 

 states except two, and in all of the territories except Alaska and 

 Porto Rico, and they reached almost a million of the farming people 

 of this country. They had in their employ 900 lecturers, many of 

 whom are among the most capable scientists in the land. The Insti- 

 tutes were organized to meet a demand on the part of the agricul- 

 tural people for information. So long as our soil was new and 

 consequently fertile, rural life inexpensive and simple, labor plenty 

 and cheap, land to be had for a dollar or two per acre, insect enemies 

 almost unknown, crops abundant, luxuriant pasture to be had at 

 almost no cost to the owner of the stock, so long as these condi- 

 tions prevailed, the need for information in regard to agriculture 

 was not felt. Any one could farm. 



CHANGE IN FARM CONDITIONS. 



All this has been changed. Good land is no longer cheap; soils 

 are no longer virgin,; labor is no longer abundant; life is no longer 

 simple; the purchasing public are no longer indifferent to the quality 

 and appearance of our products. We have begun to realize the fact 

 that we do not understand our business, at least not sufficiently so, 

 as to successfully meet the changed conditions. Men have been, and 

 still are, anxiously inquiring what they must do to be saved from 

 the sheriff's hammer, how they shall restore their impoverished 

 soil, how they shall select their seed, what crops they shall culti- 

 vate, what breeds of animals they shall rear, what fertilizers they 



