president's address. 25 



the free and profuse distribution of Bulletins bearing on every 

 side of farm life, written in exact but simple language, by the 

 employment of itinerant instructors, and especially by encourag- 

 ing the farmers to form Farmers' Institutes. These last are 

 associations or clubs for discussion of common difficulties and 

 interchange of opinions, organised under the auspices of the 

 Department so as to effectively disseminate " the results of the 

 work of the Department of Agriculture and the Agricultural 

 Experiment Stations and of improved methods of agricultural 

 practice." Thus the Department tries to reach the farmer's son 

 and the farmer's daughter as well as the farmer himself. For 

 the Department recognises that general improvement in cultiva- 

 tion can only be secured by the willing and intelligent co-opera- 

 tion of the agricultural population. And it therefore sets itself 

 the task to prove to the cultivators that it is worth their while, 

 in pounds, shillings and pence, or perhaps in dollars, to follow 

 the scientific advice which is brought to their doors. Our State 

 Department of Agriculture is being re-organised, and a Federal 

 Department is likely to be established, and we may hope, with 

 the Herald, that the experience of America will be largely 

 utilised in the new developments. 



This Department strikes admiration into everyone who sees its 

 working. Its Experimental Stations are numbered in scores, and 

 the Farmers' Clubs in hundreds. These latter are established in 

 •every State and Territory except ice-bound Alaska. Prof. H. E. 

 Armstrong, of the Moseley Commission, says of the Central 

 Department of Washington that it is "not merely an office — it is 

 .also a busy hive of research." "In 1902 the staff numbered 3,789, 

 of whom 1,209 were executive officers, clerks and messengers, 

 2,081 scientific investigators, and 409 labourers." I would call 

 attention to the proportion of scientific investigators. Why they 

 outnumber clerks and labourers combined. In Australia heads 

 of departments can usually obtain as many clerks as they ask 

 for, and always as many pick and shovel men as can be crowded 

 on the place, while scientific appointments are too often grudg- 

 ingly made, temporary in tenure, and badly paid. The Ameri- 



