BEADING HABIT 



The novels have no special relation to 

 the actual conditions under which the 

 farmer lives. I would not advise that all 

 reading have relation to the life of the 

 present, but some of it certainly should be 

 applicable in order that it may have mean- 

 ing. We have very few good novels de- 

 picting the real farmer. A good many 

 farmer characters have been drawn, but 

 most of them are caricatures, whether so 

 intended or not, and present a type of 

 life and a vocabulary which, if they exist 

 at all, are greatly the exception. Com- 

 mon novels are likely to be exotic. A good 

 part of them are read because they are the 

 best sellers of the time. 



The bulletins of the experiment stations 

 and departments of agriculture are now 

 widely distributed ; but they are not read as 

 much as they ought to be. This is in part 

 because the mailing lists are not selective, 

 and in part because the reader may have no 

 fundamental knowledge to enable him to 

 use them. In many cases the bulletins 

 themselves are unreadable and are only 

 reference texts. 



39 



