THE FARMERS' INSTITUTES OF MICHIGAN. 



BY DR. R. C. KEDZIB. 



For twenty successive winters the Agricultural College of Michigan 

 has carried on a series of Farmers' Institutes. Perhaps a short his- 

 torical notice of these Institutes, which have spread into most of the 

 states of the Union, and even into foreign lands, may be of public 

 interest. 



In some European countries university professors were sent to lecture 

 to the farmers on the sciences relating to agriculture, but the farmers 

 took no part except as listeners. In a few states in our country the agri- 

 cultural college invited the farmers to come to the college to listen to 

 lectures on scientific subjects; but "the mountain did not come to 

 Mahomet" to any large extent. A system of Farmers' Institutes which 

 went to the farmer, securing from him an equal share in the papers and dis- 

 cussions, so that the farmer could say "Our Institute," and not "your 

 meeting," where the science of the college could strike hands with exper- 

 ience on the farm — such a system of Farmers' Institutes, permanently 

 maintained, was started hy the Michigan Agricultural College* 



The question how to bring the College and the farmers into more inti- 

 mate relations, was a subject of earnest and frequent discussion by the 

 members of the College Faculty twenty-five years ago. The generous 

 ofifer of John A. Kerr, State Printer and Publisher of the Lansing Repub- 

 lican, to print and publish an agricultural paper if the professors would 

 edit the paper and furnish a large part of the reading matter, was 

 declined with regret, because the burden seemed too great for us to carry. 

 "To write articles for the papers" seemed to measure the amount of work 

 we could safely undertake outside of college duties. 



The expediency of holding meetings in different parts of the State to 

 consider matters of interest to agriculture, and to invite the cooperation 

 of the farmers, was discussed for two or three years by the Faculty, but it 

 seemed a hazardous undertaking and failure would be disheartening, and 

 nothing was done till May 7, 1875, tvhen the following resolutions were 

 presented to R. C. Kedzie and unanimously adopted by the Faculty. 



* The Illinois Industrial University held Farmers' Institutes in 1869, and for several years there- 

 after, but so far as can be learned did not develop them into a permanent system. 



