FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 113 



degrees, 138 have had partial college courses, 108 have had normal or 

 high school training, and 90 were educated in the common schools. In 

 each instance the lecturer has had, in addition to his academic training, 

 practical experience in some branch of agriculture, and is, therefore, 

 competent to speak from both the scientific and practical side of the 

 questions that he presents. 



Until the institute came, the ordinary farmer had no school of in- 

 struction to which he could go for information respecting his calling. 

 In most instances he had no knowledge of what was doing for the benefit 

 of agi'iculture. He had no means of coming in contact with scientific 

 men, and was unable to keep informed with regard to the scientific 

 publications that were being issued by the experiment stations of the 

 country and by the National Department of Agriculture. The farmers' 

 institute has come as a distributing agent of scientific literature, and 

 is taking the latest and most reliable discoveries of the experiment sta- 

 tion and of the Agricultural Department at Washington, and is calling 

 the attention of the farming community to their value and adaptability 

 to their needs. The mass of agricultural literature that has accumulated 

 within recent years is very great. Sixty experiment stations, officered 

 by over 700 men and women, are constantly engaged in research and ex- 

 periment work in the interest of agriculture, and the National Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture has a force of 4,200 persons who are devoting their 

 entire time to the securing of information that will be of service to the 

 farming people of this country. 



The work of the stations is published in bulletin form, and distributed 

 free of cost to our citizens, and last year the National Department of 

 Agriculture published over 900 different publications, composed of 45,- 

 000 pages, equivalent to forty-five volumes of agricultural literature 

 of a thousand pages each. There were printed and distributed 11,600,000 

 copies of these publications. 



Unfortunately the majority of agricultural people are not reached by 

 the printed page. Many have lost the reading habit. A large number 

 have never acquired it, and unless some messenger brings the teachings 

 of agricultural science to these people and delivers it by word of mouth, 

 they are likely to remain ignorant of what is being done in their behalf. 

 The .institute,' therefore, has a specific work, and a well defined field of 

 operation. As yet this work is only partially performed, and the field 

 has only been partially covered. Much more remains for the institute 

 to do. We have about 27,000,000 of farming people in the United States. 

 We have reached, according to our statistics, about 1,000,000 of this 

 number, and this twenty-seventh part has been aided to a very limited 

 degree. The amount of instruction that each individual should receive 

 ought to be greatly increased, and the number of those who are to re^ 

 ceive this information is twenty-six times greater than the institutes 

 at present organized, have been able to furnish. 



Two important questions now confront the Institute Directors of the 

 United States. The first is — How shall the number of institutes be mul- 

 tiplied, and their efficiency be increased? And the second is— How shall 

 a greater degree of stability and permanency in the work be secured? 

 The first problem resolves itself into a question of securing an additional 

 number of competent instructors who will be able to give more of their 

 time to institute work than has been possible by the institute force as 

 it is at present organized. If the institutes are to reach the entire num- 

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