Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-04-20
MINNESOTA MAN cRlTIclzEs
METHODS OF TEACHING
AGRICULTURE,
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES
SHOULD GO TO FARMER
Boy. and Girls Can GO 20 the School.
But Farmers Must Have instruction
Taken to Them-Experts Should
Point Way to Stop the Leaks in
Business on tho Farm.

ST. Paul, April 20.-In severe ar
raignment of the methods Of the Min
nesota State Agricultural College, an
immense institution affiliated with the
University of Minnesota, and other
agricultural Institutions, President D.
NJ. Neill of the Minnesota Federation
of Commercial Clubs, state promo
ton association, declares that the
methods of the school men are wrong
and that their instruction should be
carried to the farmers on their individ-
ual farms. Agricultural instruction I'M
der present methods, he declares, fails
to benefit those who need it most.
"The farmer can not come to our
agricultural college," said President
|Neill in an address at Lake City. "He
is too old, he lacks time, he feels the
embarrassment OF seeking knowledge
among boys and girls. Yet no one needs
the work of the agricultural schools
SO much as he. The schools are missing
an opportunity of doing splendid
work. The state college is overlooking
work that will bring more wealth in
dollars and cents to Minnesota, more
progress and uplift socially and intel
lectually than anything 1t has ever
done. The agricultural college should
go to the farmer in fact and not in
theory. Some of the boys and girls
from the farm can attend the state
institution, but how about those who
can not. who are obliged to work, who
seek better knowledge but are con-
demned to the pillow and the dairy
barno
These colleges have practical men.
They have experts in all the special
departments of agriculture These men
should go out over the state, seeking
the acquaintance Of the farmers and
five-acre tract, plowed and planted,
cultivated and harvested under such
personal supervision could be made the
university for an entire county. No
one knows better than 1 how eager
our farmers are to learn and to i'm
prove their condition. Let our profess
sors therefore conduct practical dem
onstrations on the farm itself. and by
worn VI moulin convey new lCedS 10
the hundreds who are sure to come
and watch what Is being done.
Minnesota farmers support the ag-
ricultural school, and their loyalty to it
is so great that nothing the school
might ask would be denied. In each
of our eighty-two counties. and in ev-
cry county of these northwestern
states, agricultural college experts
should be handling demonstration
tracts" showing the farmer in prac-
teal way how to select and plant seed
and conduct his agricultural operations
These men should supervise the farm
dairy barns. When such system is
in operation, we shall have no farmers
like one in western Minnesota, who
within few months has learned that
for two years he has been boarding
one half his dairy herd while the other
half paid the bill. He weighs his food
and the milk now. and has no COWS
that do not show by the ledger that
they are making money.
"Our farmers are doing the best they
can. The state is making magnificent
agricultural progress. What is need
ed now is the work of the experts to
show the farmers how to stop their
leaks. Farming can be made as mucn
business as grocery merchandising,
the transformation.