256 CANADA 



New Brunswick's leading industry is agricul- 

 ture, and of the ordinary type of colonial 

 agricultural societies — which hold shows and 

 fairs, and introduce good stock — there are in 

 the province about sixty, with a membership of 

 5,000. They receive grants from the Govern- 

 ment to the extent of £1,500 a year, and they 

 are said to have done excellent work. But that 

 work was found inadequate in itself, and a 

 recent Act of the Provincial Legislature author- 

 ized the formation of Farmers' Institutes for the 

 purpose of disseminating information with regard 

 to agriculture. 



The position to-day is well indicated by the 

 report of the New Brunswick Commissioner of 

 Agriculture for 1902, from which I take the 

 following : — • 



The demand for more and better knowledge along 

 agricultural lines is a predominant feature with New 

 Brunswick agriculturists, for they are beginning to realize 

 the fact that no business or calling in life offers better 

 opportunities for intelligent and well-directed efforts than 

 agriculture ; but to simply plough and mow, reap and sow, 

 is no longer considered intelligent farming. Therefore the 

 farmers of this province have awakened to the necessity of 

 being informed along all lines of this work, for never in 

 the history of the province has there been such a demand 

 for printed information as the demand of the past year. . . . 



Lectures are delivered in every section of the province 

 through our Institute speakers, who are men skilled in all 



