Annual Report of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture

is a powerful stimulus for better effort in horticulture, agriculture, stock-raising and the arts and industries that add to the wealth, comfort and advancement of our people.

Crop Reports have been issued about the tenth of each month, either in leaflet or pamphlet form. To meet the growing demand for these reports by the farmers, as well as merchants and dealers in grain and produce, we have furnished condensed reports to the Associated Press, and to the county press, in addition to the fuller reports sent to crop reporters, secretaries of Boards of Agriculture, Boards of Trade and to Exchanges in this country and foreign lands. Although five thousand of these pamphlet reports of crops and fertilizers are usually issued, there are few left over at any time, and frequently the supply is exhausted before the demand is met.

Heretofore partial reports of the fertilizers, sampled and analyzed, were made in August to meet the demand of farmers, who wished to buy fertilizers for use on the wheat crop. The largest part of fertilizers sold in the State are used on wheat, and since farmers have learned to consult the official reports of this Board for the standing and commercial value of every brand of fertilizer sold in the State, manufacturers and agents have been the more anxious to have all their goods analyzed and reported at least by September first.

The custom of manufacturers placing their goods in hands of farmers as their agents, has greatly increased the labor and cost of collecting the samples, since the goods are taken from the railroad station to the agent's farm, or distributed from the car to the purchaser.

Thus a large per cent. of fertilizers on sale in the State are not to be found at a railroad town, but must be traced to a farm house distant from the railroad. The increased time necessary for collection of samples increases expense of sampling, and demands more time in the preparation for a report. So that by the time the samples have been collected and analyzed, the report comes too late to be of immediate benefit to the purchaser and manufacturer. But as the manufacturer has substantially the same line of goods on sale from year to year, it has been thought best to make one complete report, embracing all the samples collected and analyzed during the year, and let that be made at the close of the year, and be good for reference and use of buyer and seller the coming year. This plan will give time to prepare the reports with greater care, and reduce the expense incident to more frequent and partial reports.

The system of sending out, at the beginning of the year, a complete set of blanks for twelve months to crop correspondents, instead of the old way, and as practiced by States generally, has proven a success, and greatly reduced the expense of distributing blanks to correspondents, and has also, indirectly, improved the service of correspondents.

Farmer's Institutes were held during the months of November, December,

January and February, to the number of 70, which is the largest number ever before held in the State in one season. Although the Ohio State Board of Agriculture was the first to inaugurate the system of institutes, and has increased the number year by year, some of the Northwestern States have been more successful in getting legislative aid for this educational work; nevertheless, Ohio still leads in the number of institutes and attendance.

With one-half the money expended in Wisconsin or Minnesota, the institute work in Obio could be greatly improved.

The Board is indebted to, and most appreciative of the assistance generously and ably furnished by the President and professors of the Ohio State University, the State Horticultural Society, Prof. Tappan, School Commissioner, and Superintendents John Hancock, LL D., Alston Ellis, LL.D., and Professor Mees, of Ohio University. Leading educators of the State have generously and cordially given us aid, not of hirelings, but philanthropists ready to labor for public good.

In the wake of farmers' institutes, clubs and farmers' associations have sprung up, where the farmers and their families meet monthly for social and intellectual improvement.

The analyses made by the official chemist, Prof. N. W. Lord, have been so accurate as to bar criticism by parties in interest, and have increased confidence in standard goods, and held in check sale of low grades.

The appropriation for the encouragement of agriculture has been most judiciously expended, and a larger appropriation could be very profitably spent in further advancing the interests of the producing classes.