Secretary Rusk speaks with enthusiasm concerning farmers' institutes : "I would merely say on this subject that it is a matter of no little gratification to me that this great work has nowhere been more fully tried than in my own state, where it was my privilege and pleasure to encourage it in every legitimate way, and nowhere has it reaped a more abundant harvest than in Wisconsin. Experience there and in other states has fully demonstrated the extraordinary benefits arising from these institutes, and I am strongly of the opinion that, without going into details as to the precise way in which aid to the movement should be furnished, the National Government, in pursuance of the policy so strongly marked out by the establishment of the agricultural colleges and experiment stations, should put it in the power of the Department of Agriculture to foster and encourage the work of the institutes in the various states and territories. The institutes have been justly designated the farmers' colleges. No truer title was ever conferred.

I will only add that the strongest lever to raise and uphold the work of superior agricultural education represented by our system of agricultural colleges and experiment stations is to be found in this institute and kindred work".

The Cactuses that bear the most flowers and give greatest satisfaction in this northern latitude, are not those entrusted to the care of florists and to the climate of a hot-house. Here they grow best in a dry, cool room, which has an even temperature during the winter, and which allows the entrance of sunlight and beat during the early spring.

This season we travelled on the banks of the Hudson, and along the Atlantic seaboard from New Jersey to Massachusetts, and the most splendid specimens of cereus, both crimson and pink, of the rat-tail and crab-claw cactuses, and such free-blooming sorts that we saw, were grown by flower-loving women, possessing only the simplest appliances for the work. - D. W.