726 AGRICULTURE 



these different qualities will have to be bred to suit the soil and 

 climatic conditions of each section. Here then is a great task, one, 

 however, which offers magnificent rewards. It is firmly believed that 

 the scientist and the cotton-planter will together be fully equal to its 

 solution. 



We have sought by these few illustrations to show what science has 

 already contributed to the advancement of agriculture and how it 

 may be expected to do still more for it in the future. No one now 

 doubts that the progress of agriculture in the future depends chiefly 

 upon the discoveries in science and their application to the practical 

 problems of the farmer. 



The discoveries of science, however, and the demonstrations of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture through its experiment 

 stations, will be of little value to the American farmer unless he is 

 well enough educated to understand them and skilled enough to 

 apply them. More secondary agricultural schools and schools for the 

 training of horticulturists, dairymen, and other specialists are needed 

 in all our states. The higher agricultural institutions and departments 

 of agriculture in our universities are answering an admirable purpose 

 in training experts and investigators; but so far we have very few 

 secondary agricultural schools. It is believed that the next develop- 

 ment will be along this line. Certainly the greatest need of American 

 agriculture is farmers trained to habits of observation and skilled in 

 the application of science to their business. What the new agriculture 

 will do for the advancement of the race when even a majority of 

 farmers have learned its methods confounds the imagination. This 

 greatest of productive industries will lay a new foundation, deep and 

 broad, upon which man will build a new life, growing ever nobler and 

 truer "unto the perfect day." 



