FARMERS' INSTITUTES 243 



excellence in any agricultural or horticultural production 

 or operation, article of manufacture, or work of art ; 



(d) By carrying on experiments in the growing of 

 crops, the feeding of stock, or any other branch of agri- 

 culture, or by testing any system of farming through 

 arrangement with one or more of the farmers of the 

 municipality in which the society is organized. 



But in actual practice the said societies rarely 

 went beyond the powers conferred upon them 

 by section " (c) " in regard to the holding of ex- 

 hibitions, and these, in the words of the Minister 

 of Agriculture for Ontario, soon degenerated 

 into " spectacular amusements," after the fashion 

 of country fairs, the real interests of agriculture 

 being put into the background. Another au- 

 thority on the subject wrote not long since : — 



I go to nine or ten exhibitions in this part of the 

 country, and it is seldom we find a judge who really knows 

 the difference between a Shropshire, a Hampshire-down, 

 and a Southdown. 



Agriculture could not be expected to derive 

 much real stimulus from societies conducted on 

 such lines as these, and it was a happy inspira- 

 tion that led to the starting in Canada of the 

 type of Farmers 9 Institute which was already 

 doing good work in the I nitcd States. This 

 new organization, however, was to supplement 

 rather than supplant the agricultural societies, 

 and it lias certainly worked along lines of activity 



