32 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



We may possibly gain courage for our work and faith that the 

 future has its triumphs, and we shall certainly properly introduce 

 our subject, if we gather up into a brief summary a statement of 

 the resources that are now being applied along various lines, to 

 the betterment of agriculture. 



According to official statistics there were in 1894 sixty institu- 

 tions in the United States maintaining courses in agriculture. 

 The faculties of these institutions included one thousand six 

 hundred and forty-three persons, who were using annually nearly 

 four and a half millions of dollars in the instruction of over 

 twenty-one thousand students, about one-fifth of whom are regis- 

 tered in the Course in Agriculture. In the same year the Experi- 

 ment Stations numbered fifty-five, fifty-one of them receiving 

 Government aid. These stations were officered by five hundred 

 and seventy-seven persons, who were using annually in various 

 ways nearly a million dollars. They published in the year ]uen- 

 tioned fifty-four annual reports and four hundred and one bulle- 

 tins, and distributed this literature to half a million persons who 

 are either directly or indirectly interested in agricultural affairs. 



It appears, then, that the time of perhajjs two thousand 

 persons,' and the outlay of five and one-half million of dollars, 

 are annually being applied to education and investigation, largely 

 that the farmer may know more and do better. It is wortliy of 

 remark in passing that of this large sum of money, over two and 

 a quarter million dollars are a direct gift from the national 

 Government. Not all of the expenditure for the maintenance of 

 student instruction in the land-grant colleges is used in teaching 

 agriculture, but a generous proportion is — much larger than is 

 indicated by the percentage of agricultural students. 



In addition to this national aid to agriculture, which surpasses 

 that ever provided b}^ any other nation, a majority of the States 

 have established boards of agriculture and have arranged by law 

 for the public instruction of farmers, either through what are 

 called farmers' institutes or by means of migratory schools, such 

 as the dairy schools of New York. We have no means of esti- 

 mating the time and money thus utilized quite directly for the 

 popular education of the agriculturist, but their amount is large. 



This, then, is the situation : Agriculture along with other 

 industries is recognized in our higher institutions of learning 



I Some who are engaged in teaching are also station workers. 



