RISE AND DEVELOPMENT 17 



standing, work together in the furtherance of agricultural 

 co-operation as though they had but one common object 

 in view. 



The popularisation of agricultural science by means of 

 pamphlets, bulletins, periodicals, lectures, courses of in- 

 struction, schools of farming, shows, experimental fields, 

 and an active propaganda generally are not only bringing 

 about a more or less complete transformation in agricultural 

 production, and advancing the prosperity of those concerned, 

 but are improving the type of the agricultural workers 

 subjected to these beneficial conditions. 



New or revived village industries, supplementing agri- 

 cultural industries proper, give more openings to rural 

 populations and offer them greater inducements to remain 

 in the country, while the business meetings and the social 

 gatherings of the societies, together with the reading rooms, 

 libraries and village halls set up, invest country life with 

 greater attractions which, again, should help to check the 

 migration to the towns, and must in themselves be regarded 

 as preferable to the introduction into country life of urban 

 amusements likely only to increase the desire for urban 

 life. 



Thanks, in short, to agricultural organisation, progress 

 to-day is spreading in the backward rural districts in most 

 countries of the world ; and this progress means, not only 

 an increase in material prosperity, but social, moral and 

 intellectual development as well. 



WOMEN AND RURAL LIFE. 



In the work of social advance and the betterment of rural 

 life women are taking, or are being invited to take, an 

 important part. 



Women's Institutes, supplementing the earlier Farmers' 

 Institutes, have undergone great development in the United 

 States and Canada, where they have become an active 

 force in all matters appertaining to household and domestic 

 science, to woman's work on the farm, and to the social 

 conditions of the community in which they operate. 



A.O. c 



