over, if the institutes are to be extended until they reach the many 

 millions who need their help, the force of teachers will have to be 

 increased twenty or even fifty-fold. 



SUPPLYING INSTRUCTORS. 



The important and difficult question that now confronts the friends 

 of institute work is, How can the supply of capable institute instruc- 

 tors be increased? 



Hitherto, State directors have depended upon picked-up help for 

 lecture service; upon > the agricultural colleges and experiment sta- 

 tions for expert scientists to teach the science of agriculture, and 

 upon such successful practical farmers as can be induced to leave 

 their work and take a place upon the force for giving instruction re- 

 specting the practical operations of the farm. The rapidly expand- 

 ing work of the agricultural colleges and of the experiment stations 

 is each year making it more and more difficult for members of the 

 teaching and experiment station force to be spared from their duties 

 at these institutions. Unless these colleges and stations employ a 

 special force of experts to represent them in the farmers' institutes, 

 the time will soon come when very few of their number will be in the 

 institute field. Even now, many directors are dependent almost en- 

 tirely upon laymen for service as institute instructors, with the pros- 

 pect that, unless something of the kind suggested is done, of being 

 wholly deprived of college and station help. 



For the year ending June 30, 1903, the colleges and stations of the 

 United States furnished 196 members of their staffs for the institute 

 work out of a total of 924 lecturers on the force. These lecturers 

 contributed 1,666 days of time out of a total of 4,880 days of insti- 

 tutes reported, being 20 per cent, of the lecture force, and showing 

 that they were present at 30 per cent, of the institutes held. In 13 

 states and territories the entire institute work was performed by the 

 agricultural college and station men, and in five others more than 

 half of the force was made up of college and station officials. It is 

 evident that unless some means are devised for aiding the colleges 

 and stations in these states, that very soon the institute work must 

 be abandoned and what has been gained at so much cost and effort 

 will be lost. 



SOURCES OF SUPPLY. 



There are three possible sources of supply for the institute lec- 

 ture force. The first is from the faculties of the agricultural colleges 

 and the staffs at the agricultural experiment stations. The supply 

 from these sources, as the colleges and stations are at present or- 



