FARMERS' INSTITUTE. A meeting of farmers for mutual improvement in their busi ness or home life. These meetings have grown out of the public meetings held at a compara tively early day in the United States under the auspices of local or State agricultural societies. The institutes are carried on under varied aus pices and are supported in very different ways in different sections, but the character of the meet ings themselves is essentially the same every where. They may last but half a day, as in Louisiana, where the farmers assemble once a, month at the experiment stations, or may con tinue three or four days. The tendency, how ever, seems to be toward shortening the duration and increasing the number of meetings, by which means a greater number of localities may be reached. The winter, when the stress of farm work is somewhat lessened, is the season usually favored; but in some States very successful meet ings have been held at other seasons of the year.
The programmes are planned to promote the in terchange of ideas, a full and free discussion be ing sought upon topics introduced in an address or paper by some specialist. Officers of agricul tural colleges and experiment stations, and other experts, as well as successful farmers who have attained more than local reputation, are usually selected a-s institute workers by those who have charge of the system of institutes for the State. These workers may also be chosen by the local authorities from lists of such workers prepared by a central bureau. The local committee in vites successful farmers of the neighboring dis tricts to explain their methods, provides music, and literary or other general exercises. and ar ranges for the place of meeting, refreshments, and advertising. All persons in attendance, the humblest as well as the most prominent, are urged to ask questions on points suggested in the address, and to present related facts gained from personal experience. A 'question box' is fre quently made use of. answers being given by the
conductor of the institute, or by some one spe cially fitted to supply the information asked for. For the evening sessions the usual plan is to have a popular lecture upon some subject of general agricultural interest. This address is made somewhat more elaborate and complete than those of the day sessions, and less oppor tunity is given for discussion.
While the character of the institutes is such as to make it impossible to assign any definite date as the time of their differentiation from other farmers' assemblies, yet the period following the organization of the agricultural colleges under the Morrill Act. of 1862 seems to have been the time when the farmers' institutes took a distinct form, and under that name began to receive the patronage of the States. Thus, in 1862 the Mas sachusetts State Board of Agriculture held a public meeting of four days' duration, and in 1866 the Connecticut State Board of Agriculture held its first farmers' convention for lectures and discussion. In 1870 the newly organized State Board of Agriculture of New Hampshire began a series of farmers' meetings. and in the following year Vermont followed this example. During the same year the Massachusetts board requested the 29 agricultural societies of the State to organize annual meetings, to be denominated the "Farm ers' Institutes of Massachusetts." and several so cieties began at once to hold such meetings. About the same time institutes were inaugurated in Iowa, Kansas. and Michigan by the agricul tural colleges of those States. Other States soon joined the movement, and legislatures began to make appropriations to maintain the institutes. In 1885, when the board of regents of the Uni versity of Wisconsin organized a course of in stitutes, a special officer. called the Superintend ent of Farmers' Institutes, was appointed to plan and manage them, and this arrangement was afterwards confirmed by the State.