WOMEN'S INSTITUTES AND VILLAGE LIFE 381 



The same remarks apply to the National Poultry 

 Organization Society, which should also form 

 part of a federation on the lines here suggested. 

 In fact, when these various societies go to the 

 agriculturists, and reproach them — more or less 

 — for not adopting principles of co-operation, it 

 would be open to those agriculturists to reply : 

 " Quite so : but why don't you societies set us 

 the example among yourselves ? " 



To co-operative agricultural associations for 

 commercial or other material purposes, and to 

 co-operative credit banks for the financing of 

 cultivators, small and large, might well be added 

 some such organizations as the Farmers' Insti- 

 tute and the Women's Institutes which I have 

 described under the heading of " Canada." In 

 Great Britain, as in the Dominion, agricultural 

 societies of this type should fulfil a most useful 

 purpose from both an educational and a social 

 standpoint, adding as they must do fresh in- 

 terests to village life, and helping to relieve what 

 must too often be its unspeakable dullness. 

 From each of these points of view the formation 

 of women's agricultural societies seems to be 

 especially worth considering. It was, indeed, a 

 very happy inspiration which led the wives and 

 daughters of Canadian farmers to conclude that, 

 inasmuch as women generally play so important 



