LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. 



Hon. Franklin Wells, 



President State Board of Agriculture: 

 Dear Sir — I herewith transmit a report of the Farraers' Institute 

 work carried on under the direction of your honorable Board during the 

 winter of 1895-6. 



The report is intended to show the methods and results of the work 

 under the State law of 1895. The growing importance of Institutes in 

 this State and in other states makes it seem of interest to insert a brief 

 history of Michigan Institutes, although the substance of such history 

 has heretofore been printed. We have also included considerable statis- 

 tical material which may not be of interest to the general reader, but 

 which is valuable to the student of Institute work, and which will be 

 more especially valuable for reference as the years go by. With the 

 space at our command it has been impossible to give a lengthy report of 

 each Institute, but we have endeavored to present something from each 

 meeting. The bulk of the material, so far as the meetings are concerned, 

 is edited from a stenographic report of the "Round-up" meeting at Grand 

 Rapids. At this meeting nearly every worker employed by the Board 

 of Agriculture presented his leading topic. Hence, the report of the 

 Round-up contains a large proportion of the addresses made at the 

 county meetings. A brief discussion of the chief features of the Michi- 

 gan Institute system will be found in the text. 



Yours respectfully, 



KENYON L. BUTTERFIELD, 



Superintendent. 

 Agricultural College, ) 



May 1, 1896. \ 



