AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES NEW AND OLD 241 



College, the Farmers 1 Institutes, and the various associa- 

 tions under the control of the Minister — many agencies 

 and a great work. 



Of these various agencies the one that has, 

 perhaps, exercised the most direct and the most 

 powerful influence in recent years, in giving a 

 new impetus to the development of agriculture 

 in the Dominion, is the Farmers' Institute, with 

 its equally successful off-shoot, the Womens' 

 Institute. 



In Canada, as in most of the European 

 countries already dealt with, there came a time 

 when the ordinary type of agricultural society 

 was found no longer equal to the practical re- 

 quirements of the day. But this conclusion Mas 

 arrived at not without good experience of the 

 institutioi in question. There had been agricul- 

 tural societies in Canada since 1798, and the old 

 records relate how, in those early days of Colonial 

 history, the farmers would meet together at a 

 monthly dinner, and indulge in much conviviality 

 — and also in much snuff-taking — as an accom- 

 paniment to their exchange of views on the best 

 way in which the interests of agriculture could 

 be advanced. 



In 1830 an Act was passed in Ontario which 

 provided that when an agricultural society was 

 organized in any district lor the purpose of im- 



