75 



needs to have these facts s5-stematizecl. arranged, and classified. He needs to 

 have them not only written down on a slip of paper, hut he must he so familiar 

 with his subject that he can proceed without a moment's hesitation. 



Could every station man talie a part in the farmers' institute work of his State 

 every winter lie would be a better station worker for it. Could every farmers' 

 institute lecturer spend one or two weeks at his State experiment station before 

 beginning his winter's campaign, at the close he would be the better prepared 

 for his work. Closer relations would be established between the scientific 

 worker and the class to be benefited by his work. As a result the benefits would 

 be mutual. The work of investigation would be given a more practical turn, and 

 the farmers' institutes would become more truly agricultural schools. Thus 

 would both institute and station be more fullj' meeting the requirements for 

 which they were organized. 



Discussion. 



Mr. C. A. Zavitz. of Ontario. I think, perhaps, the keynote of the paper to 

 'vhich we have just listened might be embodied in two ideas : First, cooperation, 

 and second, the proper sympathy and understanding between the farmers' insti- 

 tute worker and the needs of the people. 



I will dwell briefly upon those two points. I thinlc we have all been thor- 

 oughly impressed during our meetings of the last two days with the impor- 

 tance of cooperation. Here we have met together ; we have been talking about 

 the work of the agricultural colleges ; we have been talking about the work of 

 the experiment stations ; we have been talking about the work of the farmers' 

 institutes, and the greater sympathy and cooperation there is between those dif- 

 ferent lines of work, those different institutions, the greater will be the results 

 of any one of them. 



I think that one of the most important things in connection with our institute 

 work is that those who take up the work will come closely in touch with the people 

 with whom they are dealing. In one of the papers that has been read it is men- 

 tioned that we should be thoroughly conversant with the work of Armsby and 

 Henry and such men. That is true. It was also mentioned that we should be in 

 touch with the needs of the people. That is just as Important, I think, as the 

 first. 



Now, how can we get in close touch with the people? There are different 

 phases that might be taken up, many of which have been referred to already ; 

 but there is one line of work which has been touched on here this afternoon, 

 on which there has not been very much said in the meetings of the past 

 two days, and therefore I will dwell upon that phase for a little while. It 

 was just touched upon by the speaker. I refer to the cooperation between the 

 station and the farmei's. Some eighteen years ago, when I became connected 

 with our agricultural college and experiment station work, I felt that there 

 was a need of liringing the results of the experiment station in closer touch with 

 the farmers than had been done in the past. Our experiment station had been 

 running then for about ten years. We were obtaining some valuable informa- 

 tion, which was being brought out in bulletin form and disseminated among the 

 people ; but you know that a great many of the farmers can not take the 

 bulletins and reports and glean out of them the real cream of the work and 

 make practical application of that work as well as if they were better trained 

 along certain lines. AVe started about eighteen years ago in a very simple 

 way to see what we could do in establishing a system of cooperative work 

 among the farmers. The first year we sent out letters, and we got 12 ex- 

 students of the college to conduct experimenttU work on their own farms, at 

 their own homes, in connection with the work at the college. We sent them 



