Farm advisory services as they are understood today developed slowly, although the Department of Agriculture was established in 1892 and Lincoln Agricultural College was founded 10 years earlier. The Department's Director of Fields Division said in his annual report of 1924–25: “With the limited number of Instructors–six senior and eight junior officers–it is impossible to organise their work on a basis satisfactory to both the Department and the farmer.” Four years later the number of instructors had increased to 28 and from then on, except during the depression of the 1930s and the Second World War, there has been a steady but slow growth in numbers.