other, it Is the itinerant Instructor. In our searches, at the time of the recess 

 committee, this was a feature which in every country the demonstrator and 

 educationist laid stres.-< upon as showing, invarialily. the most fruitful results. 

 ;ui(l all of the experience of the department since has contirmed us in the faith, 

 which experience both in England, Scotland, the Continent, and in Canada and 

 America had implanted in our minds. 



The methods in use in the British Empire for disseminating agri- 

 cultural information among the rural population are worthy of care- 

 ful study by the farmers' institute workers and other agricultural 

 teachers of the United States. They are the result of many years 

 of experiment in agricultural education by the most capable and 

 practical agriculturists and scientific experts of the Old AVorld. 

 Out of this long experience and careful study there have been evolved 

 the present forms of agricultural education that have stood the test 

 of years of actual operation, and have had ihcir value demonstrated 

 by the results that have been accomplished in the improvement of 

 agriculture wherever they have been fairly tried. They have sup- 

 plemented the elementary and primitive forms l)y which farmers 

 undertook to instruct themselves through neighborhood meetings 

 for conference and exchange of views, substituting for these dis- 

 putatious methods, which too often left the audience in- doubt and 

 the contestants unconvinced, local and itinerant schools of instruc- 

 tion, taught by capable specialists of acknowledged attainment and 

 experience, whose statements are substantiated by results secured 

 on experiment farms and demonstration fields. 



In preparing this bulletin for the use of farmers' institute workers 

 of the United States, the value of the methods adopted by the several 

 governments in providing for agricultural education and for dis- 

 tributing agricultural information, as compared with those in use 

 in this country, is so nuu-h a matter of individual judgment that no 

 discussion of that feature has l)een attempted, it being thought best 

 to simply collect the facts and leave the determination of their value 

 to the individual student who may Avish to perfect the methods in 

 use in his own State or locality. 



A comparison of the farmers' institute systems that prevail 

 throughout the United States with the methods of instruction found 

 to be most satisfactory in the countries comprising the British 

 Empire will no doubt convince the student that there is room for 

 improvement in our American methods, and perhaps will induce 

 some of those in charge of the institute work in the United States 

 to adopt so much of that which has been successful abroad as our 

 conditions and circumstances seem to justify. 



John Hamilton. 



