48 



farmers' institute work with our regular inspection trips to the outlying experiment 

 substations, of which we now have provision for eight, viz, six arid farms, a southern 

 Utah experiment station, and a central I'tah experiment station. 



Two or three speakers from the agricultural college are usually sent on each of these 

 farmers' institute tours. Practically all heads of departments on the experiment 

 station staff have been thus called oil to participate in the work of the farmers' insti- 

 tutes, besides many of the assistants and other members of the college faculty. 

 Among the latter I desire to mention espec;ially our professor of domestic science and 

 her assistants. Their work among the women at the farmers' institutes has been 

 productive of much good. 



Where possible to find local speakers to help in the meetings, we encourage such 

 participation. Usually a considerable part of the programme is given up to questions 

 and answers, or discussions which such questions evoke. 



The lines of work touched upon are too varied to enumerate here, but those touched 

 on most frequently or presented most extensively are arid farming, duty of water, 

 alkali land reclamation and prevention of alkali troubles, organization for grading 

 and marketing fruit, combating the codling moth and other insect pests, the dairy 

 industry in diversified farming, and the application of thoughtful and scientific 

 methods in household economy. 



There have been no distinctly new lines of work introduced, but a few features in 

 which we diverge somewhat from previous years are, first, we have held more county 

 institutes as distinguished from meetings in the individual small settlements; second, 

 we include in the Annual more nearly the exact addresses given and the questions 

 and answers as presented; third, at the Strte fair this fall we joined with the experi- 

 ment station exhibit some farmers' institute work by delegating several members of 

 the station staff to explain and elaborate on the things there exhibited to the visitors 

 as they pass along or congregate around the experiment station booth. 



Personally, 1 am impressed with the advantages in the arrangement, whereby the 

 members of the experiment station staff and the agricultural college faculty thus 

 get out into the various farming communities. There accrue from it reciprocal ben- 

 efits that far overbalance the inconveniences resulting from some interruption in the 

 regular work at the station and college. Hardly any other one thing gives us as 

 good means of learning what are the live jjroblems confronting the agriculturist, or 

 what presentation will make the theoretical and experimental deductions most useful 

 to the farmer. 



VERMONT. 



By George Aitken, Woodstock. 



According to Vermont law, we are obliged to hold at least one meeting in each county 

 every year. During the months of December, January, February, and March we held 

 40 meetings. Average attendance, 125; amount of money spent, $1,882.05; number 

 of speakers employed, 17. We find the best results from working in connection \vith 

 the Grange and in the back towns, remote from railroads and large cities. New lines 

 of work taken up last winter were "Alfalfa for eastern farmers" and "Agriculture in 

 our rural schools." 



VIRGINIA. 



By A. M. Soui.E, Blacksburg. 



During the past year the farmers' institute work in Virginia has gone steadily for- 

 ward; probably it marks the inception of the real development of farmers' institute 

 meetings as understood and appreciated in many of our States. From September 1, 

 1904, to September 1, 1905, more than fifty meetings were held in widely scattered 

 sections of the State, eight out of the ten Congressional districts being visited. 



The amount of money appropriated for farmers' institute work amounts to $5,500. 

 A member of the State board of agriculture is appointed from each Congressional 

 district, and $500 is apportioned to each man. There is also an ex officio member of 

 the board who has $500 at his disposal, and he has seen fit to turn this money over to 

 the defravment of the expenses of the ariuual meeting of the Virginia State JFarmers' 

 Institute.' The $500 given to any Congressional district is at the disposal of the 

 member therefor, and in most instances the members have seen fit to spend their 

 quota. 



The number of speakers employed at the meetings has never been over four in any 

 case. As the work is so new in 'this State it has been ditticult, if not impossible, in 

 many instances to get local speakers, and the brunt of the battle has fallen on the 

 shoulders of the experiment-station men. As a rule, two men from the station attend 



