24 



The nnnibev of siseakers CDiployed I will not attempt to give you. The board 

 of agriculture that lias charge of this work gets out each year a list that 

 includes the professors in the agricultural college and many prominent speakers 

 in New England States, and when we get one from outside the State we usually 

 attempt to keep him for a week, which makes his traveling expenses very light. 



The new lines of work that are being taken up in IXIassachusetts are demon- 

 stration work. A general institute was held at the agricultural college last sum- 

 mer, and all the different lines or different organizations of the State were 

 invited to cooperate in it. The fruit growers' association, the cattle owners' 

 association, the creamery interest, and the grangers were all invited. We had a 

 very fine institute. There were demonstrations in creamery work, wdiich is 

 of special interest in the western part of the State. A part of one day 

 was used in the mixing of insecticides and fungicides and the exhibition of 

 spray pumps. The fruit men were very much interested, and the fighting of 

 the insects and of fungus growth on the fruit and vegetables is of great impor- 

 tance among the market gardeners of Massachusetts. We had a very large 

 attendance, and it was probably one of our best meetings ever held in Massa- 

 chusetts. 



The average attendance of our institutes is 104. The largest attendance was 

 something l)etween :'.()() and 4(X). and ])erhaps the smallest was about 2."). Some- 

 times we have small attendance owing to conditions beyond our control — that 

 is, the weather. If we have an institute advertised on a day when the weather 

 is stormy and the roads bad, the attendance is naturally small. I ])resume 

 this is the same way in other States. 



I wish to say that the institute work in Massachusetts is growing, as I 

 presume it is in all other States; that the farmers are beginning to realize 

 that the speakers that we employ are from the experiment stations and have 

 had practical experience. Occasionally we get a very successful man who has 

 farmed and made lots of money, and people interested in the same line of agri- 

 culture vi'hich he has pursued want to know Iww he has done it, and we per- 

 haps get hold of such a practical man. So they are finding out that the insti- 

 tute is one of the great teachers. Another plan is also getting the grange to 

 help. In some instances where the Pomona Grange took hold with the regular 

 farmers of a county or town the attendance has been very largely increased.. 



MICHIGAN. 

 By L. R. Taft, Lansi)i(/. 



I can report verbally that during the past year we held in Michigan .300 

 institutes, of which 75 were two-day county institutes, covering practically all 

 the counties in the State, except some of the mining and lumber counties in the 

 noi'th, with 224 one-day institutes scattered through the counties and a three-day 

 institute at the agricultural college as a sort of round-up. 



The appropriations for institutes last year was JfH.OOO, of which about $5,000 

 was spent for the one and two day institutes paying the per diem expenses of 

 the speakers, and the remainder for the round-up institute and salaries, the 

 printing and mailing of the rei)oi-ts. We secured, and have for years secured, 

 mailing lists from the various counties through the membership list of the dif- 

 ferent county institute societies, and when printed the reports were mailed 

 direct to each member. Others were sent, of course, to libraries, newspapers, 

 prominent farmers, etc. The speakers regularly on the list numbered about 00, 

 but we had in addition some 15 at the round-up institute, several of whom came 

 from outside the State. In this list of speakers we had 15 ladies, and at practi- 

 cally all of the two-day institutes we had a lady upon the programme for about 



