80 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS. 



results of all these researches and experiments are not 

 merely rendered accessible to the farmer who would 

 like to know them, but they are brought to his know- 

 ledge, and, so to speak, are forced upon his attention 

 by every possible means. The " Bulletins " of the ex- 

 perimental stations are distributed in hundreds of 

 thousands of copies; visits to the farms are organised 

 in such a way that thousands of farmers should inspect 

 the stations every year, and be shown by specialists the 

 results obtained, either with new varieties of plants or 

 under various new methods of treatment Correspon- 

 dence is carried on with the farmers on such a scale that, 

 for instance, at Ottawa, the experimental farm sends out 

 every year a hundred thousand letters and packets. 

 Every farmer can get, free of charge and postage, three 

 pounds of seed of any variety of cereals, out of which he 

 can get next year the necessary seed for sowing several 

 acres. And, finally, in every small and remote township 

 there are held farmers' meetings, at which special lec- 

 turers, who are sent out by the experimental farms or 

 the local agricultural societies, discuss with the farmers 

 in an informal way the results of last year's experiments 

 and discoveries relative to every branch of agriculture, 

 horticulture, cattle-breeding, dairying and agricultural 

 co-operation.* 



American agriculture really offers an imposing sight 

 Not in the wheat fields of the far West, which soon 

 will become a thing of the past, but in the development 

 of rational agriculture and the forces which promote 

 it Read the description of an agricultural exhibition, 

 " the State's fair," in some small town of Iowa, with its 

 70,000 farmers camping with their families in tents 

 during the fair's week, studying, learning, buying and 

 selling, and enjoying life. You see a national fte, and 



* Some additional information on this subject will be found in the 

 articles of mine: " Some Resources of Canada," and "Recent Science," 

 in The Nineteenth Century, January, 1898, and October, 1897. 



