16 Direcror’s REPORT OF THE 
not susceptible to improvement themselves. This is the type of 
man who for several decades has withstood the appeals that have 
been made to his intelligence and business sense through agricul- 
tural literature, farmers’ institutes, the example of successful 
neighboring farms and other influences, direct and indirect. It 
is urged by several prominent men, whose advice is not to be 
ignored, that so called model or demonstration farms be estab- 
lished at public expense in perhaps every county in the older 
states as a sure means of rescuing our agriculture from its alleged 
low state through the educational influence of observation and the 
power of example. This question cannot be discussed at length 
in this connection but it may well be remarked that such a scheme 
is almost certain to prove very disappointing. Official farming 
in such an extensive way would be precarious on the practical 
side, it would certainly be very expensive if a farm was equipped 
to demonstrate along all lines of agriculture important to even a 
single county, and there are grave reasons for believing that off- 
cial success would have less influence than private success. There 
are thousands of farms in New York on which it is being demon- 
strated that generous and profitable crops may be grown, the les- 
sons from which pass unheeded by many other neighboring farm- 
ers. Many who have had experience in the field of agricultural edu- 
cation in its various forms are convinced that the establishment of 
model farms is unwise and that the most effective demonstrations 
are those made on private farms, as opportunity offers for teaching 
a lesson important to a given locality. This plan permits the 
adaptation of the work to changing needs and a great variety of con- 
ditions, and involves less expense and less danger of failure than 
the equipment of permanent extensive establishments. But admit- 
ting, as we should, that such demonstrations may be effectively 
educational, it is still true that the future of agriculture will be 
determined by the slow processes of education that operate prin- 
cipally on the growing generation. We must depend upon the 
training and development of a type of man and not upon panaceas. 
