b MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



teachers, the summer school for teachers of the State University gives 

 prominence to this suDJect, and the Agricultural College is now recog- 

 nized as one of the most important departments in the University, and 

 is doing a great work for Agricultural education. The publication of 

 the first bulletin devoted exclusively to the subject of Agriculture in our 

 public schools was issued from our Agricultural College only a few 

 weeks ago, and arrangments are being made for the regular issue of a 

 bulletin devoted to this subject in sufficient numbers to supply all the 

 teachers of the State. This is no doubt the direct result of your action 

 taken at your last annual meeting, recommending that a bulletin on 

 Teaching Agriculture in the Public Schools be published by the Agri- 

 cultural College and distributed free to the twelve thousand rural teachers 

 of the State. In compliance with that recommendation Hon. W. T. 

 Carrington and your Secretary, the committee appointed for that pur- 

 pose, presented the subject to President Jesse and Dean \\'aters, and I 

 am pleased to report that it met with their hearty approval, and later 

 on the Board of Curators endorsed the movement, and now that this ad- 

 vanced step has been taken, if it meets with liberal support from the 

 Legislature a great deal of good will be accomplished. Other subjects 

 prominently mentioned in some of the first reports of the Board were: 

 The Improvement of Live Stock, Soil Drainage, Seed Selection, Crop 

 Rotation and Better j\Iethods of Cultivation. While many of the im- 

 proved methods, advocated from time to time by the Board have been 

 put into practice by a great many of the farmers, and great progress has 

 been made, there is still room for improvement along all these lines. 



The work of the State Board of Agriculture through these many 

 years has been one of public spirit and patriotism. Your time has been 

 given without remuneration, and the only reward you have received is 

 in the consciousness of having contributed something to the material 

 development of this great commonwealth. Just how much the work 

 of the Board has contributed to the development of our agricultural re- 

 sources cannot, of course, be determined, but that it has been a potent 

 factor in this development, I think no one will deny. The improvement 

 of our live stock and the improvement of our ^oil have been the constant 

 watchwords of the Board since its first organization, and to-day we have 

 the proud satisfaction of knowing that the best herds of Missouri are not 

 surpassed by any country in the world. It may be said that this has been 

 accomplished by individual energy and intelligence. Largely that is 

 true, but that individuality needed a power, somewhere, to stimulate it 

 to its best efifort, and that stimulus has been furnished by the educational 

 influences of this State, not the least of which is the work of the Board 

 of Agriculture. Notwithstanding the fact that much of our farming 



