312 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Secretary Ward of the Grand Rapids Y. M. C. A. managing the affair 

 locally, and allowing the meeting to be held in the audience room of the 

 Y. M. C. A. building. This was wholly a new thing in Michigan, and, 

 while not strictly in line with work for farmers, is entirely in line with 

 the purpose of the Agricultural College in its Mechanical Department. 

 The meetings were considered a success. 



INSTITUTE SOCIETIES. 



We believe that one source of strength of our work in Michigan is 

 the organization of a Farmers' Institute society in each county of the 

 State which has an Institute. The work is thus given permanence, 

 and the societies may be utilized for many other lines of related 

 endeavor. Summer meetings, of a picnic nature, and frequent one-day 

 meetings in various parts of the county are encouraged and in some 

 cases are being carried on. We offered to members of Institute societies, 

 this last spring, the opportunity of performing some experiments in con- 

 junction with the Agricultural College. The following is a copy of the 

 circular sent out to secretaries on this subject. Quite a number of 

 farmers in various parts of the State availed themselves of this 

 opportunity : 



COOPERATIVE EXPERIMENTS. 



To Members County Institute Societies: 



Everybody acknowledges that a Farmers' Institute is a good thing, but 

 where an Institute occurs only once a year, those who attend are very apt 

 to lose interest during the busy season. With the purpose first, of inter- 

 esting more farmers in the county Institute work, as well as keeping up 

 the interest of those already members of the county society, and second, 

 of trying to induce practical farmers to try various experiments in an 

 accurate way, an arrangement has been made by which members of 

 county Institute societies all over the State may perform certain experi- 

 ments during this present growing season, in cooperation with the Farm 

 and Horticultural Departments of the Agricultural College. Of course 

 the experiments suggested will not meet everybody's needs, but we 

 thought it better to have four or five experiments carried on all over the 

 State than to scatter our energies on a large number. If carefully per- 

 formed, these experiments ought to be very valuable in showing results 

 from all sections of our great State. 



Those who may think that these experiments are not sufficiently 

 broad will remember that this whole scheme is but an experiment. If 

 we succeed in interesting a large number of farmers the work can easily 

 be extended. Moreover the experiments given are of interest to people 

 in almost every county in the State, and are on subjects about which 

 hundreds of questions are asked at Institutes and in letters to the Agricul- 

 tural College. 



