234 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON FARMERS' 

 INSTITUTES. 



[Adopted at the Annual Meeting, Jan. 10, 1900.] 



In considering what, if any, improvement can be made in 

 institute work, your committee recognize the fact that the 

 farmers' institutes, as conducted in the past, have been of 

 great benefit to the farmers in every county in the State, and 

 believe tliey should be continued until something better is 

 found to take their place ; therefore our efforts for improve- 

 ment are in the direction of introducing such additional work 

 as will eventually lift the farmers up to a position which will 

 enable them to do better and more thorough work in the 

 future than they ever have in the past. 



Since the farmers' institutes were inaugurated a great 

 change has taken place in the methods of producing farm 

 crops ; and the farmer is becoming more fully convinced that, 

 to be a successful farmer, his labor in the future must be 

 directed by higher intelligence than has been necessary in the 

 past. The time has come when the successful farmer needs 

 to have some knowledge of how plants grow, and how best 

 to feed them with materials that can be used with the largest 

 profit ; and he also needs to know more about the care of 

 farm animals, how to feed them in the best manner at the 

 least cost. While a single lecture on either of these subjects 

 may help the farmer to do better work, it is not sufficient to 

 cover all of the important points and make them fully under- 

 stood by the farmer who has not made himself familiar with 

 the underlying principles of plant and animal growth. Your 

 committee are of the opinion that to fully cover either of 

 these two subjects, and many others that could be named, 

 would require three lectures from one who has a thoroughly 

 practical knowledge of his subject. 



