of the service especially might help to arouse the interest of the clubs in this movement.  This society might offer some prizes especially designed to interest the boys and girls of the farmers’ clubs.  Each club horticultural committee should have representation in this society.  Some of the prizes might be memberships or trips to the annual meeting.  Many members of this society are members of such clubs.  They could take the lead in the movement.  In this way the society would keep in touch with the homes and communities of the state, and all would grow together in horticultural grace—­and the other graces that go with it.

[Illustration:  A Minnesota farm home with handsome grounds and modern conveniences.]

The gospel of better homes is like every other gospel.  It must be taken to those who need it and who know it not or are not interested.  The extension service of the University is organized to carry the message of better homes, better farms, better social and business relations to the people who need it.  Farmers’ institutes, short courses, lectures, demonstration, farm supervision, judging at county fairs, boys’ and girls’ club work, institute trains, county agent service, indicate some of the kinds of work in progress.  The press is also a powerful factor in this work.  The Minnesota Farmers’ Library, which is made up of timely publications on all matters of rural interest, has a mailing list of fifty-five thousand farmers.  From six to twelve of these publications are issued each year.  “University Farm Press News” reaches regularly six hundred papers in the state.  “Rural School Agriculture,” containing material especially adapted to the needs of the consolidated and rural schools, reaches practically every rural and consolidated school in the state each month.  “The Visitor” is a special publication prepared for the use of the teachers of agriculture in the high schools of the state.  The “Farmers’ Institute Annual” is a manual of three hundred pages published each year in editions of fifty thousand and contains material of interest to every farmer.  Many special articles are prepared for farm papers.  Every department of the extension service and college and station is in touch with the farm homes of the state through correspondence, and much valuable work is accomplished in this way.  The aim is always to work from the home as the center, and from that to the group of homes constituting the community, the township, the county and the state, in an ever-enlarging circle.

[Illustration:  A typical Minnesota consolidated school building.]