458 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Important Features of the Year's Work. 

 Groivth. 

 Continued interest in this phase of agricultural teaching is 

 shown by increased growth in the club membership. During 

 the past year a larger number of towns have taken hold of the 

 work, and there has been an increased membership where work 

 had been done previously. A list of more than 1,600 local 

 leaders, many of them giving gratuitous service, shows how 

 firmly the club idea has taken root. This interest is not merely 

 sectional. There is scarcely a town left in the State which has 

 not been doing something during the past year. A small quan- 

 tity of seed was sent to more than 20,000 boys and girls. As 

 many more supplied themselves with seed from other sources. 

 The club work makes a universal appeal, and children from 

 all grades of society have been enrolled. 



Worh hivolved. 

 The field work, as indicated above, is in charge of Professor 

 O. A. Morton, assisted by Miss Ethel H. J^ash. The sj^ecial 

 work of Miss Nash is in the line of home economics, and will 

 be treated in some detail later. In the performance of his duty, 

 Mr. Morton has had occasion to confer with State officials, 

 school and other town and city officials, officers of granges, of 

 men's clubs and of other voluntary associations in nearly all 

 parts of the State. Public addresses to the number of 250 have 

 been delivered before the above-named organizations. In these 

 addresses and conferences he has been in communication with 

 more than 18,000 people. His work has also been identified 

 with the extension schools of the college, as well as with the 

 institute work of the State Board of Agi-iculture. Some part 

 of his energy has been spent in assisting in the work of the 

 agricultural and horticultural societies in their annual exhibits, 

 and in the annual meeting and exhibit of the State Board of 

 AgTiculture. This, of course, involved much travel, and re- 

 quired an absence of several days each week, sometimes as many 

 as five or six. Along with this he had to take care of a large 

 correspondence, direct the sending of bulletins, — numbering 



