REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. LXXIX 



schools will be much improved in the near future, and especially that 

 they will be so organized and maintained that in them the children 

 will be shown the attractive side of country life and will l>e taught the 

 dignity and worth of rural occupations, so as to incline them toward 

 the study of the sciences that relate to agriculture. 



FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



The farmers' institute movement in this country has now become 

 national in its extent and in the scope of its interests, and has even 

 assumed international relations as connected with similar movements 

 in other countries. Having their origin in farmers' societies of vari- 

 ous kinds, some of which date back half a century or more, the insti- 

 tutes have been developed through the efforts of farmers' organizations, 

 the agricultural colleges and experiment stations, boards and com- 

 missioners of agriculture, and many individual leaders in agricultural 

 progress, until they are now annually held with more or less regular- 

 ity in nearly all the States and Territories. Beginning about thirty 

 years ago the States have one after another shown their interest in 

 this movement through their legislatures by appropriations to aid the 

 institutes. Growth of interest in the institutes among the farmers 

 has been reflected by a steady increase in the number of States thus 

 providing for their maintenance and by the larger amounts of money 

 devoted to this purpose from year to year. According to statistics 

 published by the Office of Experiment Stations, in 1891 about $80,000 

 was spent for farmers' institutes in the United States, and of this sum 

 about $60,000 was specifically appropriated for this purpose. In 1899 

 the specific appropriations for institutes aggregated a little more than 

 $140,000, more than twice the sum appropriated in 1891, and the 

 estimated expenditure of funds derived from other sources was 

 $30,000, a grand total of more than $170,000 spent for institutes that 

 year. The statistics of the institutes for the past year have not yet 

 been collated, but the incomplete returns already received show that 

 the State legislatures of last winter were more liberal than ever before 

 to this enterprise. 



While the statistics of the institutes collated by the Office of Ex- 

 periment Stations in 1899 were not entirely complete, they showed 

 that that year over 2,000 farmers' institutes were held in the United 

 States which were attended by over half a million farmers. The 

 institutes were held in 43 States and Territories. In 19 of these they 

 were in charge of officers of agricultural colleges or experiment sta- 

 tions. In 17 they were under State or county officials, and in 7 they 

 were under the joint control of State officers and college or station 

 officers. Successfully conducted institutes are found under each 

 system of management. 



Under different names meetings of farmers in many respects similar 



