FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 347 



over them. Yea, verily, it is so — they do, brother farmer, and it is your own fault. 

 The lawyer educates his children just as yours have the opportunity to be educated, 

 only he insists on their building the foundation solidly. You send your boy to 

 school on Monday; Tuesday, he stays home to saw wood; Wednesday morning he 

 has a headache, but he goes in the afternoon; Thursday and Friday he helps you 

 plant potatoes. In the winter months he does a little better and goes two and a 

 half days in a week for five months in a year; and when he is fifteen, he stops 

 entirely. When he and the lawyer's son are old enough to go to the legislature, which 

 one is the best fitted for the place? The lawyer's son, of course. And he knows 

 nothing of farms, or how laws operate on them; so the laws he aids in making bene- 

 fit his own class of people. And if by dint of unusual intelligence the farmer's son 

 is elected, he knows no more than to make laws right and just and good, but uncon- 

 stitutional, and however good and right and just they may be, he doesn't know how 

 to make them reliable. And then the generality of farmers say they are oppressed. 



WHAT SHALL THE GOVERNMENT DO FOR AGRICULTURE? 



R. M. BATES, HASTINGS, AT BARRY COUNTY INSTITUTE. 



If it costs $1.86 to deliver a ton of grain to market, it costs at least one-half that 

 to go to town for the mail. Every farmer goes to town at least once a week for the 

 mail — at any rate that is what he says he goes for; 94c. per week, or $48.36 per year 

 is what the farmer pays for rural mail delivery once per week. With seven miles to 

 town, and over 137 farms in square form along the highway, there would be a farm 

 house every 74 rods. With good roads and the rural postman mounted on his whe^l, 

 he can give us daily mail service for 93c per week. If he can it does away with the 

 only objection to rural mail service, that of cost. More than this, it is said a 

 bicyclist can cover 40 miles a day with ease on good roads. Presumably the deliv- 

 ery can be made for one-tenth this sum. Even if the government did not meet 

 expenses on this branch of its service it is still worthy. From a financial stand- 

 point, the army, navy and even in the farmer's own domain, the Department of Agri- 

 culture does not pay. So far as I know it brings no direct returns for its enormous 

 expenditures. 



With such postal facilities as are here suggested the service of the Weather 

 Bureau could be easily extended without additional cost so as to be of great prac- 

 tical value to the mass of farmers. As some of you are aware the weather bureau 

 has one or more stations in each of the states. From these stations weather bulle- 

 tins are sent out each day giving forecasts of the weather for the following thirty- 

 six hours. At the Lansing station predictions are made each day at 8 a. m. and the bul- 

 letins reach Hastings the same evening, thus giving predictions for twenty-four 

 hours from the time the bulletin reaches the subscriber. Thus forecasts are of con- 

 siderable value now. 



With good roads and rural delivery and intelligent attention to mail transporta- 

 tion such as newspapers give, these bulletins can be of great value in haying and 

 harvest time, and when frosts are predicted in late spring and early fall. In fact, 

 the regular bulletins need not go at all. The daily paper which will then be as 

 much a necessity to the farmer as it is now to the business man, will give the 

 necessary information. Electricity as a motive power on highways may be left for 

 the present. 



CULTURE OF PEPPERMINT. 



HIRAM HUNTER, MOORLAND, AT MUSKEGON COUNTY INSTITUTE. 



Peppermint is grown in all parts of the world where the climate is not too cold 

 or too dry. It requires a deep black muck loam for raising the best grades of 

 peppermint. This soil must be plowed in the fall, so as to save time in the spring 

 and allow the winter frosts to penetrate the soil, so it will heave up and become 

 mellow. As soon as the frost is out enough so the ground can be stirred go on 



