No. 123.] DIVISION OF INFORMATION. 19 



REPORT OF THE DIVISION OF INFORMATION. 



The Division of Information collects and compiles agricul- 

 tural information and statistics; prepares, edits and distributes 

 the publications of the Department; has charge of the Depart- 

 ment library; furnishes publicity material to the press; answers 

 inquiries on agricultural matters; maintains an employment 

 bureau for farm labor; acts as an advertising and sale agency of 

 farms; and co-operates in an advisory capacity with the State 

 departments having charge of institutions which maintain farms. 



Other than the development of the co-operative work with 

 other departments of the Commonwealth having agricultural 

 activities, the work of the Division has progressed along the 

 lines that have characterized its activities in other years. The 

 change in directors when the year was a third past was in one 

 sense not abrupt. Both persons had been working in associa- 

 tion for months. The change was in reality a transition worked 

 out in harmony with mutual understanding and in agreement. 



Distribution of Agricultural Information. 



The Massachusetts Department of Agriculture continues, as in 

 the past, to answer as fully as it can the inquiries sent to it by 

 correspondents. The large numbers of inquiries by mail and 

 in person, while time-consuming, are apparently helpful and 

 appreciated. The inquiries are varied in their nature, and come 

 from people within and without the Commonwealth. The 

 Department confines its publications to the general problems of 

 production, marketing, statistics, fairs, drainage, reclamation 

 and similar problems of conservation and promotion. 



The chief program of the Extension Service of the Massachu- 

 setts Agricultural College is the teaching of crop growing and 

 animal production. In accord with this, the publications of the 

 Extension Service aim to instruct in methods of growing and 

 production. The United States Department of Agriculture em- 

 braces all three functions of administration, research, and teach- 

 ing, and issues a series of Farmers' Bulletins that are almost 



