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field to field. A man may spend a week on one field looking after the work 

 there and seeing that it is properly done, and in some cases doing it. These 

 men are all' men of college grade who are thoroughly familiar with the work, 

 an<l whom some would say, at first, perhaps, are too expensive men for that 

 work ; hut tliere is another purpose and value in their going ahout from field 

 to field. Fre(iuently when our superintendent is at a field there may be a 

 dozen farmers there to see the giviin thrashed. These fiekLs are located in 

 different parts of the State on soils wliich represent large areas of land as 

 typical soils, and when the crop is to be harvested or thrashed there may be 

 fifteen or twenty farmers there to see it, and it is essential that we should 

 have there a man who is capable of explaining the purpose of the work, and 

 who may perhai)s give an address to the farmers of half an hour. So that we 

 think it is essential to have a man who is thoroughly well trained and who 

 does not consider it at all above his dignity to drive the drill or drive the 

 binder or shock the gx-ain. That is part of his work, and as high as any 

 other part, because it is necessary to carefully guard results. It is just as 

 essential that we weigh our wheat accurately as that we weigh the calcium 

 oxid accurately In analyzing the soil. If it takes a good man to make the one 

 weight accurately, it takes as good a man for the other. 



The question is asked in regard to the size of these experiment fields. They 

 range all the way from 2 or 3 acres ui) to 40 acres. I think 40 acres is about 

 the largest field we have. 



As regards number, length of service, and exi)enses of men employed, I would 

 say our men will be out all the time from April 1 to December 1, beginning with 

 the seeding of oats — or even the seeding of clover, in March — and remaining 

 until the last shock of corn has been weighed. 



The traveling expenses I can not give iu exact figures, but all of our men are 

 required to use mileage books in our passenger associations, by which we get 

 transportation for 2 cents a mile, wliereas the regular one-way tic-ket would cost 

 'S cents a mile. I would say that the traveling expenses, at 2 cents a mile, for 

 one of our men would probably amount to $150 a season. 



Boai'd is a very large item, because most of our men board right at .the 

 field, but we generally trj' to locate the fields close enough to a railway station 

 so that livery hire is not necessary, although occasionally we have not been 

 able to do that. We have a fairly good telephone service in the State, and, of 

 course, we have the telegraph, which is always open. With the telephone reach- 

 ing to the farm, we can freipiently, by telephoning or telegraphing ahead, have 

 a man from the farm to meet us, so that the livery hire is light. 



Aside from the cost of superintendence, and aside from the cost of the fer- 

 tilizing materials we apply, which is not very great, some of our fields, even 

 on poor land, are paying the State in the products sold more than the cost of 

 the labor upon them. That we do now, or hope to do, notwithstanding that 

 we do all this work on i)lats frt)m one-tenth to one-fifth of an acre in size, and 

 everything that is done is done to exact measure. Of course that is, as you 

 are all aware, a very ex])ensive method of farming; but on a mnnber of our 

 fields we are getting sufficient, or moi-e than sufficient on .some of our products, 

 to pay for the labor — though not for tlie superintendence — required. 



L. C. CoRUKTT, of the Ilureau of IMant Industry. I am especially interested in 

 this subject of demonstration woi'k, and I confess I am disappointed in what I 

 have heard, because I consider every remark which has been made as applying 

 simply to experimental work rather than administration work. All these tests, 

 and everything that I have heard spoken of, divest the owner of the land of 

 any pecuniary interest in the results. The demonstration work which the 

 Department is endeavoring to carry on is based upon the idea of i)lacing in the 



