FARM DEMONSTRATION WORK. 



Within recent years there has been inaugurated a method of extend- 

 ing agricultural knowledge known as Agricultural Demonstration. 

 The purpose of this new educational work is not to displace or sup- 

 plant any of the other established means of increasing and extending 

 agricultural information, such as the Agricultural College, the Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Stations and the Farmers' Institutes; but it is 

 intended to supplement and assist all other means of bringing the 

 actual tillers of the soil closer to those agricultural facts ascertained 

 by the Experiment Stations and accumulated through long years of 

 experience. 



This demonstration method of teaching established agricultural 

 facts to the farmer by operations on his own farm is but another evi- 

 dence of the present tendencies of scientific methods of teaching. It 

 is the approved modern laboratory method of instruction taken to the 

 individual farm. 



The operations already being conducted on the farm are used to 

 demonstrate the value of -a knowledge of the few general scientific 

 principles underlying up-to-date farm practices, and that these prac- 

 tices are applicable to and of great value to this particular farm. 

 With farm crops the value of better seed and more intelligent fer- 

 tilization and of better preparation and cultivation of the land are 

 demonstrated. In fruit growing the increase in the quantity and 

 quality of the product resulting from better methods of orchard man- 

 agement and the value of more attention to preparing the fruit for 

 market are shown-. In dairying the unprofitable cows are detected, 

 better methods of care and feeding put in operation, and the greater 

 profits from placing a high-class product on the market proved. 



The general method of conducting this farm demonstration work is 

 to send a practical man, having a working knowledge of scientific 

 agriculture and an intimate experience with the special line of work 

 he has in charge, to the farms of the men who are to co-operate in 

 carrying out the demonstration. These visits are made at regular 

 intervals during the period of the demonstrations, in order to make 

 certain that the farmer shall have such instruction and assistance as 

 he may need in performing his part of the work. 



When the demonstrator goes to a farm he endeavors to utilize such 

 facilities as already exist there or may easily be obtained. No experi- 

 ments are undertaken, but only such crops and practices as the value 

 of which have been thoroughly demonstrated are advised. In short, 

 it is demonstration and not experimental work that is contemplated. 



