OF AGRICULTURE. 153 



propriate to the character of the country, in 

 a widely developed spirit of association, and, 

 finally, in a number of institutions and customs 

 intended to lift the agriculturist and bis profes- 

 sion to a high level which is unknown in Europe. 

 In Europe we do not realise at all what is 

 done in the States and Canada in the interests 

 of agriculture. In every American State, and 

 in every distinct region of Canada, there is an 

 experimental farm, and all the work of pre- 

 liminary experiment upon new varieties of 

 wheat, oats, barley, fodder and fruit, which the 

 farmer has mostly to make himself in Europe, is 

 made under the best scientific conditions at the 

 experimental farms, on a small scale first and 

 on a large scale next. The results of all these 

 researches and experiments are not merely 

 rendered accessible to the farmer who would like 

 to know them, but they are brought to his 

 knowledge, and, so to speak, are forced upon his 

 attention by every possible means. The " Bul- 

 letins " of the experimental stations are dis- 

 tributed in hundreds of thousands of copies ; 

 visits to the farms are organised in such a way 

 that thousands of farmers should inspect the 

 stations every year, and be shown by specialists 

 the results obtained, either with new varieties 

 of plants or under various new methods of treat- 

 ment. Correspondence is carried on with the 



