CHAPTER V. 



THE farmers' institute. 



PERHAPS the most useful, and, at any rate, the most 

 widely useful, of the methods of diffusing agricultural 

 education is the Farmers' Institute. I have not taken 

 pains to truce the origin of this institution, but it has grad- 

 ually developed, apparently from rather crude beginnings, in 

 all the progressive agricultural nations, of course varying 

 in character as well as in name in different countries. The 

 essential feature is the gathering of farmers at some con- 

 venient place near their homes, to meet successful specialists 

 in the branches of agriculture most followed in the vicinity, 

 for the discussion of practical problems in agriculture. Wher- 

 ever this is done, by whatever name the meeting may be called, 

 there is a Farmers' Institute. 



In their order of relative importance, I conceive the objects 

 of the Farmers' Institute to be, first, to get farmers to thinking 

 clearly; second, to get them to talking; and, third, to convey 

 information. The latter is by far the easiest, as the specialists 

 who conduct the institutes always have abundant information 

 to give, and are accustomed to giving it to public assemblies; 

 but the mind untrained to such work can receive and assimi- 

 late but a small amount of the information conveyed in a 

 continuous session of a day or two, and in a few weeks there 

 will remain of the information given, in the minds of most 

 present, at least so far as it has been given by formal lectures, 

 little more than a vague impression. Tiie best institute con- 

 ductors fully understand this; and, instead of seeking to occupy 

 the time themselves, find the highest exercise of their skill in 

 drawing out the experiences of the farmers present. This is 

 best, for several reasons. In the first place, the aggregate of 

 useful experience in any neighborhood is always very large, 

 and, as developed under local conditions, very apt to be more 



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