No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 329 



looking out of my office window, I saw Copeland driving his ox team, 

 walking along before them, swinging his ox whip and calling to them. 

 He was expecting them to follow. At one time he walked so far 

 ahead of them, expecting they were close at his heels that they ap- 

 parently lost sight of his leadership and began to graze by the road- 

 side. After walking on for some distance he swung his ox whip over 

 his shoulder and called to them to come on, and upon looking around 

 was surprised to see that they were far in the rear and paying no 

 attention to his directions. This, to me, illustrates fairly well what 

 has happened in the agricultural world. The colleges and experi- 

 ment stations have gone forward with their work, expecting the 

 farmer to follow, but he has been left far behind until he has really 

 lost sight of the w^ork which has been done for his benefit. While I 

 know there are exceptional cases, and a large number of exceptions 

 of individual farmers who have made progress and who are applying 

 to their work the very latest and best methods known, yet farmers as 

 a class have failed to apply the latest principles which have been 

 worked out by our investigators. We must go back to them and keep 

 our leadership closer to the individual farmer. We have learned that 

 the agricultural science will not feed the hungry people of our land 

 unless it is actually and practicall}^ applied to the production of food 

 crops on the farm. The educational pendulum is now swinging rap- 

 idly towards the other extreme. The demand is being made that 

 agriculture shall be taught everywhere and by everybody- 



Vocational training is demanded as a part of our regular school 

 system and in separate schools of agriculture and agricultural high 

 schools. Agricultural education is now being given to the masses 

 through farmers' institutes ; through better farm trains ; by the 

 ''schooner" wagons which go out across the country, carrying charts 

 and illustrative material to the individual farm; by the introduction 

 of agricultural courses in the public school ; by the agricultural high 

 schools as separate institutions ; by the agricultural colleges, not only 

 through their regular four year courses, which lead to a degree, but 

 by their schools of agriculture; their special courses and by extension 

 work and demonstration experiments; by experiment station bul- 

 letins; the agricultural press; by the popular monthly and weekly 

 magazine ; through the daily new^spapers, and even from the pulpit of 

 our churches as well as by the organized bureaus of the state and 

 national government. This all means that the effort is being made 

 at the present time to reach the individual farmer. We have been 

 considering farmers in the mass; we must now pay more attention 

 to him as an individual and there must be a constantly increasing 

 effort to reach the individual farmer and help him to solve his 

 problems. 



The difficulties which are being met with in this popularizing of 

 agricultural education are the facts that agriculture is a peculiarly 

 technical study, and that it re(]uires trained teachers in order to 

 properly give the instruction, and these trained teachers are difficult 

 to find for the money w^hich is available as salaries. This teaching 

 requires not a mere statement of facts which relate to farm life, but 

 a thorough discussion of the principles which underly these facts. 

 Conditions may change, but where the principles are thoroughly un- 

 derstood the farmer should be able to apply them. This work re- 

 quires time, industry and patience and while our short courses in 



