266 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



better pleased than ever; as well pleased as if they had had the se- 

 lection of the speakers themselves. 



Now, Mr. Chairman, I want to say that if the institute workers 

 of this State want to make institutes a success, if they want to make 

 the Department of Agriculture of our State the success that it ought 

 to be made, they must each and all be loyal to the administration of 

 the Department of Agriculture, and if they are, I know the work 

 that is being done will be successful and that the Department of 

 Agriculture will be even a greater success than it has been in the 

 past or is at the present. 



MR. HALL: Mr. Chairman, for the benefit of those of us who 

 have to twist our necks around, will you ask the speakers to kindly 

 take the front. 



DEPUTY SECRETARY MARTIN: Gentlemen, you all have diffi- 

 culties in your work. Now I would like to suggest that you make 

 that a prominent feature of your discussion. We want to hear about 

 that, and profit by one another's experience. 



MR. HOWARD, Cameron County: Mr. Chairman, for the last five 

 years I have been the County Chairman in our county. Just why 

 they put me on, I don't know. Of course I had a farm, but I am 

 no farmer. I am, as Brother Herr says, an "agriculturist," but we 

 have been holding institutes in our county for a number of years, 

 and at first they were well attended, but for some reason or other 

 they run down, and I guess they put me on because they couldn't 

 get anybody else that would take them. The first two years I was 

 very much discouraged. We probably would open up the meetings 

 with six or eight, or ten or fifteen farmers, an audience of from 

 twenty to twenty-five was about the average, and one or two in- 

 stances there were only about half a dozen, and in the evenings there 

 would be probably fifty or a hundred, something like that. 



It has been said that the National government was doing a great 

 work for the farmers in- sending out their publications, and it was 

 also stated last night that the farmers are not much for reading, and 

 I think the assertion is borne out that these pamphlets and cir- 

 culars and year books, etc. — that are sent out — that probably not 

 more than five or ten per cent, are read. They are well worth read- 

 ing, but if the farmers don't read them, what good are they? What 

 is the use of all that expense when it does not produce the result? 

 And there is where the farmers' institutes come in. If the farmers 

 won't read, why, hold your institutes and drill it into them; talk it 

 into them. They will sit and listen to you and hear you talk, but 

 they won't take a book and sit down and read it. Hence, I say, the 

 farmers' institutes are doing good work. Tell them about these 



