THR FAUMKRS' INSTITUTE. 69 



second-hand information of the non-professional must be 

 made to answer. Non-professional lecturers, from their fre- 

 quent opportunities to hear university or other specialists, and 

 tlieir own experience and observation, rapidly become able to 

 authoritatively answer most questions relating to common 

 pests and diseases, soil chemistry, plant physiology, and the 

 like; and a successful and well-educated farmer will discuss 

 feeding and culture problems with more convincing authority 

 than a professor. 



This discussion of what an institute and institute workers 

 should be ought to give any reader who is so unfortunate as 

 never to have attended a Farmers' Institute, a very good idea 

 of its objects and methods. At the institute, so far as possible, 

 there are taught the laws and processes of animal and vegetable 

 growth, the causes, nature, and prevention or proper treatment 

 of diseases of plants and animals, the mechanical and chem- 

 ical constitution of soils, the action of water in the soil, the 

 commercial value and proper culture of old and new plants, 

 the science and practice of feeding, the details of technical 

 dairying operations, and all the numberless major and minor 

 subjects bearing on rural life. Not that all these things are 

 taught or discussed at any one institute, but su(;h a selection 

 is made as will best suit the needs and desires of the members 

 and the special abilities, knowledge, and experience of those 

 who lead and address it. The institute is successful in a 

 direct ratio with the spontaneous questioning and discussion 

 which it elicits. It is, therefore, what its members make it. 

 I have heard farmers say that they could learn nothing at 

 such an institute, as they already knew their business. Such 

 farmers, if they have the least spark of humanity in their 

 bosoms, should be the first ones on hand and the last to leave, 

 in order that they may communicate some of their knowledge 

 to the unfortunate majority who still have something to learn. 



