During this same period, there has been an almost equally wonderful advance in the means of agricultural education. Just twenty years ago the experiment-station system of this country was established. It took ten years for the stations to organize their work and to gain the confidence of the farmers. At present however, they are looked upon with great favor by the farming class and are doing a magnificent work. Their function is that of research chiefly, although they attempt some control service, such as inspection of fertilizers, stock foods, etc. In research they aim both to study the more intricate scientific questions that relate to agriculture and to carry on experiments that are of more obvious and more immediate practical application to existing conditions in the various states. There is one of these stations in each state and territory, besides a number of stations supported by state funds. The Department of Agriculture at Washington has also developed during the last ten years until it is performing very large service for agriculture. Its annual expenditures aggregate eight or ten million dollars, and it has in its employment hundreds of experts carrying on laboratory and field research, scouring the world for plants and seeds that may be of economic value, and assisting to control plant and animal diseases. It is also distributing a vast amount of practical information, put in readable form and adapted to the average farmer. Its work of seeking to extend the markets of our agricultural products is one of its notable successes.