No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 278 



lars; they can draw from each county an equal amount of a hun- 

 dred dollars to be used for agricultural education and development. 

 Thus when we form an organization of the character here intended 

 and get your societies in the townships and counties thoroughly or- 

 ganized, you will have a demand for hfty or twenty-live days of in- 

 struction, as you choose to make it, and get a thousand or two thou- 

 sand members. Then you will be able to raise that hundred dol- 

 lars without an eti'ort and draw the additional hundred dollars from 

 the county and be equipped, not only for agricultural exhibits in 

 these institutes and other places, but you will demonstrate that you 

 are actually engaged in developing agriculture in your home coun- 

 ties. 



A Member: Does not the law say that it must be a free contri- 

 bution? 



The DEPUTY SECRETARY: It is a free contribution; it is for 

 the purpose of agriculture and no other. 



Now that is not all that is in our mind about this matter. My 

 friends, agricultural education, in order that it may be accomplished 

 satisfactorily, is a great work, and to a great extent is twofold. 

 The first is to have mentally conceived an idea, and the next part 

 of that education is to carry it out with your hands in actual prac- 

 tice. We have come to a time in the history of farmers' institutes 

 in Pennsylvania in which we not only give and must give the cor- 

 rect oral instruction in open farmers' institutes and we can never 

 dispense with that — for as long as man lives and has a tongue and 

 intellect, we must have oral instruction, but then, in order to couple 

 together these two great principles, we must organize in these coun- 

 ties for actual practice, namely, schools of practice in our insti- 

 tutes running for a week or two weeks in the diiferent counties of 

 the state in which we will take up such subjects as dairying, and 

 we want to enlist the young men as well as the old in the work, and 

 have a two weeks' school at some of the dairy farms, and gather 

 in a hundred young men and old men, and go through the actual 

 practice, not only teaching by word, but by practice. 



We are approaching that time, and when it comes, then we will 

 have with it, out on these farms of Pennsylvania, men who, when 

 they enter upon any special line of farm pursuits, will not only 

 have the mental knowledge, but the practice to carry that on to 

 success. 



Now I have developed to you somewhat the degree of instruction 

 both oral and practical that I think w^e should have in these 

 farmers' institutes, I do not know how you feel about this, I think 

 T know, but I may be mistaken, but I am certain that you are all in- 

 terested in the work; I know that from the conversations and let- 

 ters I have received. Take the suggestions home with you, and 

 discuss them in your grangers' and farmers' unions and amongst 

 your friends, and in counties where there is no organization, and 

 start to work and form these organizations, and when the next Legis- 

 lature meets, we will have the law so amended that it will amalga- 

 mate and bring together all the different organizations in one great 

 combine for united effort in this work. 



My friends, until that time comes, some improvements which we 

 think should be acted upon by the County Chairmen, which are es- 



18—7—1906 



