30 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



years ago. I could go through a list of fifty important improvements that 

 have come to us with the last twenty years, and for which science is 

 responsible. 



Secretary Wilson went to Texas the other day and found there an 

 insect that threatens the destruction of the cotton crop of the United 

 States, and has asked for $500,000 to assist in its extermination. In Bos- 

 ton a little insect escaped from a scientist's window into the forests, and 

 now threatens the destiiiction of all forest growth. The Hession fly is 

 all over this country. In a great many districts around here they used to 

 grow wheat; you are not doing it now. We have constantly new prob 

 lems confronting us that we must meet or abandon our calling. We can- 

 not look to practical men for relief. Science must aid us. 



The fact is science is now planning to locate a man on a piece of 

 groimd and keep him, and his successors, on it for the next thousaml 

 years, and to make it possible at the end of that period for that land to 

 be a little better than it is today and have been a perpetual source of 

 profit and support to every generation that possessed it in spite of drouth, 

 and flood, and insect enemies, and fungous diseases. This will require 

 scientific work in agriculture. With you, where things are so favorable 

 and where lands are new, and your wealth is just at hand, to be had for 

 the taking, any one may still be able to farm, but the time has come over 

 a great part of this country when it is a serious question to know what 

 men shall do to secure profitable crops. 



The agricultural experiment stations, the agricultural colleges, and 

 the National Department of Agriculture are all at work endeavoring to 

 solve the agricultural problems that arise to vex the man behind the 

 plow, and the institute will take the information which they secure and 

 hand it out to the toilers in the fields who have neither the time, train- 

 ing, or opportunity to study these questions for themselves. 



I believe the institutei is destined to be the great school of agricul- 

 ture of this country. Last year over nine hundred thousand farming peo- 

 ple attended their meetings. Over three thousand institutes were held 

 throughout the United States. Institutes were held in all of the States 

 and Territories of the United States, except six; three Territories and 

 three States; and the three States have agreed that they will hold meet- 

 ings this year. When that occurs there will be farmers' institutes in 

 every State in the Union. They are as a rule organized upon the central 

 control plan. A few States only have the admirable arrangement you 

 have for local organization. 



The work has been taken up by the agricultural colleges and experi- 

 ment stations, so that in twenty-one States the institutes are controlled 

 and directed by these institutions. In a large number of others they are 

 in the hands of boards of agriculture, or special institute boards, or under 

 the direction of a commissioner of agriculture. Last year there were 

 over nine hundred teachers engaged by the State Directors. In addition 

 to the men who were selected by the local managers, the States had in 

 their employ over nine hundred lecturers. In taking the names of one 

 hundred of these lecturers from the top of the list, forty-three were found 

 to be college men, fourteen had normal or high school training, and the 



