Live Stock Breeders' Association. 129 



organization. It was started in 1879 by the ex-students of our 

 College, who felt that they wished to get back to the institution 

 once a year to meet their associates, to come in touch with the in- 

 stitution, with their alma mater, and to keep abreast of the times 

 from an agricultural standpoint. After this work had been going 

 on in this way for a few years, we felt that it would be an asso- 

 ciation through which we could carry on our co-operative and ex- 

 perimental work throughout the province. Therefore, in 1886, we 

 started, with this association of ex-students, a small system of co- 

 operative experiments. The first year they were twelve in number. 

 We wrote to the ex-students and obtained the consent of twelve 

 of the number to conduct experiments upon their own farms. 

 From those twelve experiments, we obtained eight reports. The 

 next year we secured sixty experimenters, the next year ninety- 

 three, and the work has gone on from year to year until we now 

 have 4,420 farmers who are conducting experiments upon their 

 own farms, in connection with our work at the College, with 

 farm crops. Then we have about 3,000 men carrying on experi- 

 ments with horticulture, some in poultry-raising, and quite a 

 large number in forestry. We have altogether work being carried 

 on now along some six or seven different lines, and that work ha>' 

 all had a very wholesome influence. It not only keeps the ex- 

 students in touch with the institution, but it also enables the Col- 

 lege to place a piece of the Experiment Station in homes all over 

 Ontario ; it enables the farm.ers to conduct experiments on their 

 own farms; it gives the farmers something to think and study 

 about, in a way not thought of before. Therefore, I say that it 

 not only has an influence in keeping the ex-students in touch, but 

 it encourages the farmers to increase the profits of the farm, it 

 introduces upon their farms a number of the best varieties of 

 crops, and shows them improved methods of cultivation. 



Then, it has a very wholesome influence in the advancement 

 of agriculture throughout the province. I do not know of any- 

 thing which has had a greater influence in elevating the people, 

 enabling them to think for themselves, than this work. We see 

 the results of our work now all over the province. We find that 

 by sending out improved varieties, showing better methods of 

 cultivation, through the influence of that work, and through the 

 influence of our other experimental work, that the output of the 

 Ontario farms, during the past fifteen years, has been cloublecl, 

 which is a statement, I think, which means a great deal. The 



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