50 THE farmer's education. 



with the whole number of farmers, but is rapidly increasing. 

 Tliose farmers who live near enough to their stations to make 

 them an occasional visit, can benefit still more from them if 

 they will only ask questions. What they will see there will 

 be mostly new to them, for the stations do not spend money in 

 finding out what is known already. A visitor, therefore, who 

 merely passes through without inquiry is not likely to learn 

 much. He will not understand what he sees, and possibly will 

 imagine that the station men are also working in tlie dark, in 

 which he will be wholly wrong. I do not think the station 

 work is usually well appreciated by farmers living nearest the 

 stations. 



Akin to the bulletins of the Experiment Stations are the 

 publications of the Department of Agriculture at Washington. 

 The greater part of these are prepared in a popular form for 

 general use, and are distributed free upon application to the 

 Secretary of Agriculture at Washington. Some, however, are 

 sold at the cost, as fixed by the public printer, and are obtained 

 by inclosing the price to the Superintendent of Public Docu- 

 ments at Washington. None of the documents are sent 

 regularly, as they appear, to any address, except a monthly 

 list of publications, which is mailed regularly to all who 

 request it of the Secretary of Agriculture. From this list the 

 farmer can see what the nation has published for his benefit, 

 and by application can obtain what he desires. 



These publications of the Experiment Stations and tlie 

 department are among the most available sources of informa- 

 tion for farmers. They are su[)plemented in many, and 

 perhaps all states, by the publications of State Boards of Agri- 

 culture, Horticulture, Dairying, and similar official bodies, all 

 of which are always mailed free to residents of the state. It 

 is the part of a live modern farmer to know the exact places 

 from which this information is to be had as it aj)pears, and to 

 apply for it and make use of it. Great sums of public money 

 are spent yearly for the benefit of the farmers. The informa- 

 tion supplied is authentic and useful. No other industry 

 receives any such assistance from the public, and thus far the 

 hardest task of all has been to get the mass of farmers to take 

 and use the information which is supplied to them without price. 



