called because they supervise the home project work 

 which every pupil is required to carry. Detailed infor- 

 mation about the supervisors is given later. 



b. A second source of information was that of personal 

 observation and discussion at the schools, supplement- 

 ed in many cases by special conferences and by cor- 

 respondence. 



Method of Gathering Data. It was deemed advisable to secure 

 the data desired from the farmers through the pupils in the schools 

 concerned. In order to accomplish this, personal visits were made 

 to all of the schools. These visits were made in the course of two 

 months, at the rate of 4 or 5 schools per week. In two cases slight- 

 ly less than half a day was spent in the schools; in two other cases 

 two days were spent in the schools; in the remainder the time spent 

 varied from a half to a whole day. Owing to the topography of 

 the state, and to distances traveled, it was not feasible to visit more 

 than live schools per week. During the visits, printed question- 

 naires were distributed among the pupils, and were then carefully 

 explained to both teachers and pupils. Pupils were asked, provid- 

 ed they lived on farms, to take the questionnaires to their fathers 

 or to friends in case the latter were farmers. The pupils were fur- 

 thermore asked to explain the questionnaires to whoever was to 

 fill them out and to render assistance where it seemed advisable in 

 the mechanics of scoring the questionnaires, t'pon being filled out, 

 the latter were in all cases first returned to the respective schools, 

 in order that they serve as a basis for discussion, and for action in 

 connection with the educational work affected. Later the question- 

 naires were sent to the writer. 



In order to mid out more about farming conditions than could 

 be revealed through the question blanks sent out through the 

 pupils, and by visiting the schools, personal visits were made to a 

 number of farms selected at random. In addition, the supervisors 

 of agriculture were asked to give their ratings and classifications of 

 the farms studied through the pupils. 



The Farms Studied a Selected Group. Figure 1 shows that 



-egards location, the communities selected for study form, for 



practical purposes, a random distribution. On the other hand an 



rt was made- to secure returns from the "fair" and "good" farms 



11 



