No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 299 



I have appealed to them in this way; I have gone into some places 

 where they have seemed indifferent or have seemed set against the 

 idea of holding an institute, and determined that a meeting should 

 not or would not be conducted, and I have put it in this way. I have 

 said to them: Now the state has appropriated money and has placed 

 it in my hands to be spent in your community, and I have come here 

 to ask you how I can spend some of that money in such a manner 

 as to help you people with that money. Now when the proposition 

 is presented to them in that way, if you show a man that you are 

 trying to help him, and have money to spend in his interest, he is 

 going to be a very narrow-minded man if he does not take hold and 

 do something. In that way I have brought men to the institute 

 and to my assistance that had not come before. As to the methods 

 of doing the work, why that depends altogether on the conditions 

 that you meet with at the place where you are. If I was to come 

 here to conduct an institute, I should conduct it altogether differ- 

 ently than I would if I should go into some of our lower counties 

 which are decidedly southern in every particular. I went into a 

 town in the lower part of our state where we had called meetings 

 several times, with the result that Ave had a very poor attendance, 

 and it was rather discouraging to try to conduct an institute. Fol- 

 lowing the advice of Mr. Wing, who assisted me at one time in that 

 state — he was with me when we had a splendid program and a 

 very small attendance — I tell you this to bring out some of the 

 characteristics of the man; some of you may know him. He was 

 talking to an audience of only fifteen. We had a splendid pro- 

 gram, but somehow the people did not seem to manifest much 

 if any interest in the institute work. Finally he stopped and said, 

 "If you are going to sleep. I am going to tell you a bear story." He 

 said, "Amoss, I would't talk to these farmers anymore. What's 

 the use?" I made up my mind that the next time we came to that 

 place we would make a success of it, so when the time came for us 

 to hold a meeting there again, I determined to secure the interest 

 of the people in some way. We went around and met the ministers 

 of the town, and explained to them what an institute was, what its 

 object was, and asked them what they would recommend us to do 

 to help their people and interest them. Then we went to the lead- 

 ing lawyers and then to the business men. By that time the day 

 was exhausted. They took the work up and the result was a splen- 

 did institute. When w T e came into the town it was snowing and 

 raining, and the slush was six inches deep, notwithstanding we had 

 a good audience during the day, much better than it had ever been 

 before. We were told that it was useless to try and conduct an 

 institute there at night with the slush as deep as it was, because 

 the people could not get out. I said, "Your town is small, why 



