FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 115 



My plan has been to get programs arranged early enough to give 

 plenty of time for advertising thoroughly. Send programs to every 

 paper in the county, and to adjoining counties when the meeting place 

 is near the boundary lines. Nearly, if not all editors are glad to print 

 programs in their papers as news. Ask them to call attention to the 

 coming institute in each edition for two or three weeks prior to the 

 meeting. In this way nearly all will know of the meeting. With this, 

 and the liberal use of large posters put in conspicuous places, the cir- 

 culating of the programs at the stores, granges, farmers' club meet- 

 ings, etc., and by sending by rural carriers programs to leave in every 

 mail box, and by addressing some to remote parts of the county, the 

 institute will be thoroughly advertised. Don't forget to talk about the 

 coming meeting, in short, keep it constantly and continually before 

 the public. 



Upon each one-day institute program I have printed the places and 

 dates of all the one-day meetings, also the place and dates of holding 

 the two-day institute, and the place and date of the State Round-up. 

 By this method, on each program we are advertising all of the institutes. 

 I have observed in many counties the offiqers are having a hard time 

 raising the required amount of money by membership fee to defray 

 the expense necessary to have printed programs and other things re- 

 quired for a successful institute. In many county we are raising much 

 more money at a ten cent membership fee than we did when we col- 

 lected twenty-five cents annually. 



I have been at institutes in some of the best counties in the State, 

 having a large attendance, and with a strong appeal by the secretary 

 for members to the institute society, he would succeed in gett-ing one 

 member and sometimes not any. By inquiry I learned it had been 

 that way for years, oftentimes the officers having to make up for de- 

 ficiency. I believe it is far better to get twenty-five persons interested 

 by their having something invested in an enterprise at ten cents each, 

 thereby raising |2.50, than by getting ten persons at twenty-five cents 

 each and raising the same amount. We have followed this theory for 

 several years in Hillsdale county and have to make no especial effort 

 now to raise all the money we need and more than- enough, as we now 

 have about |35.00 in our treasury, after paying all expenses for our 

 six one-day and our two-day meetings. 



I believe there is scarcely a locality in Michigan where a successful 

 institute with a good attendance cannot be held if the proper attention 

 is given to the advertising of the same. One of the sad features of in- 

 stitute work is the fact that oftentimes the very ones that should attend 

 a farmers' institute and those who need the instruction most, are not 

 present. 



There can be much done for the work by letting this class of people 

 know about the institute and by urging them to attend. Let us, as in- 

 stitute officers, adopt a better method of advertising, if possible, and 

 thereby raise the standard of attendance and interest in these farmers' 

 schools of instruction to a higher and a broader plane of usefulness. 



