178 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



which we are enabled to employ men, graduated from our agricul- 

 tural colleges, and others graduated from the equally important 

 school of experience, who travel all over this broad Commonwealth, 

 to impart instruction to those who wish to learn. The work begins 

 in the fall of the year, just as soon as we have gathered in our crops. 

 When we have our potatoes and our apples and our cider stored 

 away in the cellar, and our fuel is all gathered in, then our insti- 

 tute work begins, and these lecturers travel over the State giving 

 instruction in methods of cultivation, soil improvement, dairying, 

 stock breeding and farm and household economy, which proves bene- 

 ficial to us all, and this, sir, is the character of the people that you 

 have here to-day. The men who are engaged in this work need to 

 be well equipped, for the farmer is not only a student, but he is an 

 apt student, who not only learns readily but who has the ability 

 to discern between the teaching that is true and that which is false. 



I remember that when a few years ago this work was begun in 

 the State of Pennsylvania, there were doubting Thomases in the 

 audience, and not until there had been some progress, until they 

 saw the effect it was having upon our agriculture, did some of these 

 men regard the work favorably, but they are becoming apt pupils 

 now. 



These instructors that we send out must be able to keep up with 

 the advances made by their pupils, and sometimes this is no easy 

 task. 



I remember when I was a boy of sixteen, I taught a public school 

 to which there came a class of boys and girls older than myself who 

 had been away to an Academy, where they had been studying Eng- 

 lish Analysis, and had gone through the first book of Davies Al- 

 gebra, and I tell you, I had a tough time of it to keep out of their 

 way. I think possibly such has been the case in regard to our in- 

 stitute work, but thanks to the energy and earnest devotion of these 

 lecturers, they have kept in advance. They seem to have seen in 

 the very beginning of the work, that it would be necessary for 

 them to keep in advance of their pupils, and that to do this they 

 must labor industriously and they did it, and did it well, and it is 

 due to their energy and fidelity and to the good judgment of our 

 Director of Institutes, Brother Martin, that we have kept up the 

 standard, and we have been able to meet the call for higher train- 

 ing and more advanced work as that call has come. 



This, Mr. Chairman, is the character of the p(^ople whom you en- 

 tertain to-day. I am glad to have received this welcome from 

 Judge Smith, and I am glad to be here. I am glad to have the honor 

 of being entertained by the good people of Clearfield and Clearfield 

 county, and when the work of this week has been done, when we 

 have accompished the objects that have brought us together, and 

 when we go out, as I trust we shall, strengthened for the work in 

 which we are engaged, to our various homes and various fields of 

 labor, I feel sure we shall go cherishing the kindest feelings to- 

 wards the people of this little city, and (addressing* Judge Smith) 

 I hope that you, sir, and the citizens of Clearfield will feel that some 

 little good has come into your lives because of your association 

 with us. 



The CHAIR: We have with us this afternoon one of the largest 

 market gardeners in Pennsylvania, one of the men who uses the 



