154 THE POSSIBILITIES 



farmers on such a scale that, for instance, at 

 Ottawa, the experimental farm sends out every 

 year a hundred thousand letters and packets. 

 Every farmer can get, free of charge and postage, 

 five pounds of seed of any variety of cereals, 

 out of which he can get next year the necessary 

 seed for sowing several acres. And, finally, in 

 every small and remote township there are held 

 farmers' meetings, at which special lecturers, 

 who are sent out by the experimental farms or 

 the local agricultural societies, discuss with the 

 farmers in an informal way the results of last 

 year's experiments and discoveries relative to 

 every branch of agriculture, horticulture, cattle- 

 breeding, dairying and agricultural co-operation.* 

 American agriculture really offers an imposing 

 sight not in the wheat fields of the Far West, 

 which soon will become a thing of the past, but 

 in the development of rational agriculture and 

 the forces which promote it. Read the descrip- 



* Some additional information on this subject will ba found 

 in the articles of mine : " Some Resources of Canada," and 

 " Recent Science," in the Nineteenth Century, January, 1898, 

 and October, 1897. I see from the Experimental Farms' Reports 

 for 1 909 that on the average 38,000 samples of seeds are sent 

 in this way to the farmers every year ; in 1909 more than 38,000 

 farmers united in experiments as to the relative merits of the 

 different sorts of wheat, oats, and barley under trial. I think 

 that my friend, Dr. William Saunders, is quite right in saying 

 that this system of supplying a great number of farmers with 

 small quantities of choice seeds has contributed notably to in- 

 crease the yield of corn in Canada. 



