19 



Nature has set up many harriers which h.iv(» not yet heen orerconie with means 

 of communication ami transportaticm. Families and communities are widely 

 .separated from each other hy impassable canyons, mountain chains, and desert 

 lands; hut these people are none the less interested in improved methods in 

 agriculture. Indeed, they are often doubly interested, on account of the difficul- 

 ties which tliey must overcome ere success will crown their efforts. Long stage 

 trips over sagebrush jdains and across mountain passes is often the lot of the 

 institute worker ; hut when the people are reached in these out-of-the-way places 

 the work is rec-eived with earnestness and a determination to get out of it all 

 that is i)()ssible. AVere it not for the conviction that comes home to one from 

 some encouraging sign that the work was highly appreciated and really bene- 

 fited some industrious, worthy individual, there would be little to compensate 

 for the effort necessary to reach many of these people. Not all the work is so 

 arduous as this by any means. We have large and enthusiastic meetings in the 

 larger towns and more thickly populated districts near the railway lines. Our 

 best institutes, however, are in the smaller niral settlements. Fifty to 1(¥) 

 deeply interested farmers make a better institute, in my judgment, than HOO 

 Iiresent in a town wh(>re the element of entertainment usurps the time and leaves 

 not enough solid meat for slower digestion and assimilation. On this account 

 we do not hesitate to go to remote country settlements where a schoolhouse can 

 be secured for the meetings. 



What a grand mission to be able to " break the bread of life." as it were, 

 to these struggling, earnest people who by foix-e of circumstances often are 

 compelled in this far western country to dei)rive themselves of associations 

 which only come with denser population and greater production of the com- 

 modities which the railroad seeks to transport. Thus we would jdace lack of 

 transportation facilities and long distances to travel among the most trying 

 conditions to overcome in institute work in the West. 



It is not easy to sui)ply instructors to keep pace with the growing demands 

 for this work. 



The experiment station staff is taxed to the limit and should be relieved from 

 too much institute work. 



I believe the institute furnishes one of the best means of bringing the station 

 worker in contact with the people whom he wishes to benefit, and he should 

 not on this account be entirely relieved from institute work. 



This is doubly true in the West, where the conditions vary so greatly in 

 comparatively short distances. Altitude, proximity to mountain and timliered 

 lands, exposure to the winds which sweep the plains, all have a marked 

 influence on agricultural possibilities, and it is quite necessary that the investi- 

 gator become as familiar with these local conditions as possible in order 

 to apply the results ^^■hich he secures in the laboratory or field located often- 

 times hundreds of miles away. The institute offers opportunity for an intei'- 

 change of ideas with the farmers on the ground where the application of scien- 

 tific data must be made better than any other means available at the present 

 time. 



This personal contact is far better than the printed report on results obtainetl 

 at the station. So I think that while it is not an easy task to determine just 

 how nuich institute work should be done by station men. it is easy to see that 

 a iwrtion of their time can be profitably spent in this way. 



We need in the West more men who have been trained in gathering data 

 and have the faculty of communicating it to men engaged in practical affairs. 

 We have not such a large number of graduates of agricultural colleges to draw 

 from as you have in the East. Our institutions are young and robust, but have 

 not as yet a large list of graduates. 



