No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 265 



stitute convened. One man didn't send word until the day after he 

 was to be there. When the lecturer cannot come, I think he should 

 notify the directors of the institute so that a substitute may be 

 provided. We had men that drove fifteen miles last winter to hear 

 the talk on dairy subjects and there was nobody there to talk to 

 them. I would also suggest that where the districts adjoin, insti- 

 tutes should not be held at the same time. 



ME. RIDDLE, Butler County : Mr. Chair man, I have never had any 

 difficulty in having an interest in institutes and I think I have had 

 with me almost all the leading lecturers, and our institutes have al- 

 ways been a success. 



One thing, however, that I want to talk about is this: That some- 

 times institute workers make extravagant statements. A number 

 of years ago, with a party to whom I am about to refer — he is not now 

 on the institute force — but a number of years ago he was in our 

 county as a member of the institute working force, and he made such 

 extravagant statements, that I deemed it my duty as chairman, to 

 call his attention to the fact. One of the statements he made was 

 that he had a cow which produced three pounds of butter a day. 

 After he made that statement, I called his attention to it. I said, 

 "You ought to be a little guarded in your statements; that state- 

 ment is misleading. It may be true but it is pretty hard to swallow 

 any such statement." I want to say further that that gentleman 

 had a chart that he used in his illustrations, and after he had gone 

 through our county, while sitting before him one day, I said to him, 

 "Have you noticed that there are two words in your chart which are 

 misspelled?" No, he hadn't noticed that. These misstatements 

 leave an undesirable impression, and create a feeling that the rest 

 of the matter being given may also be unreliable. You know, Mr. 

 Chairman, that the royal road to success has never been discovered, 

 and I want to say this, that one of the most important things that -a 

 lecturer before an institute can keep in mind, one of the best impres- 

 sions he can make and oue of the surest impressions that he ought to 

 leave, is the fact that there is no excellence without great labor; 

 that is as true to-day as it was when we read it in our Fourth Reader 

 when we w 7 ere boys at school. It is a truth from which no power of 

 genius can absolve us. If that impression is left, the institute work 

 will be more successful. 



Last winter a new force was sent to our county, and when our in- 

 stitutes had been located and announced, a number of men came to 

 me and said, "Why do you have a new force this winter?" I said, 

 "I have nothing at all to do with it." I said I knew the gentlemen 

 but I didn't know how effective they were as institute workers. After 

 they came into the county and held their institutes, these men came 

 to me, many of them, in fact a great majority of them, and were 

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