EVOLUTION IN FARMING. 



Let us think more, work less and accomplish more. I mean this not for 

 those who farm for fun but for those who live by farming. It is a pity that 

 more of the thinking cannot be done by those who are practical farmers 

 rather than by those who spend all their lives in theorizing. 



Dr. Wilson: Doubtless the improvements have been great, but are we 

 wiser as to farming than our fathers? Considering their surroundings and 

 •conditions I think to farm in the times of our fathers required as much 

 brain as now. 



Mr. Van Hoosen : I agree with the paper. When I came here with oxen 

 and other old-fashioned equipments we had less time for institutes and 

 improvements than now. Some say our machines cost as much as doing 

 things by hand, but they do it better. 



Mrs. A. E. Collins: One cause of evolution has been overlooked. People 

 say, keep the boys on the farm. Is not a better way to bring city ability, 

 •culture and thought to the farm and renew the city by sending the fresh 

 blood of the country to manage their great affairs? 



Mr. Willits: As Dr. Wilson says, the progress is not so great as appears. 

 Crops were rotated in the time of Virgil and evolution in agriculture has 

 heen less marked than in other industries. Why? Because progress in 

 agriculture is necessarily limited. We have to plow now as then. You can 

 travel now 100 miles where Virgil went 10, but you can't produce ten times 

 as much grain. In shops you find one man skilful in one thing. At that 

 he works all the time. On the farm it is not so. You can't have the same 

 degree of skilled labor. The farmer has to work at one thing to-day, another 

 to-morrow. But there are compensations. You don't get ten times as much 

 wheat as before but you get about the same price, and for that price you get 

 ten times as much of manufactured products. WHiile a manufacturer may 

 make a fortune in five years he may lose all in one. The farmer cannot 

 make so rapidly or lose all at a stroke. 



Mr. Ball: I differ. This statement needs a grain of allowance. I think 

 there has been as much of an evolution in farming as in other industries. 

 The professor and I were boys together, and we followed or swung the old 

 cradle. Now we can get on a reaper and carry an umbrella, and do much 

 more. Those old needs and practices have passed away by evolution or 

 improvement. If there is a limit to improvement on the farm, then the 

 work of the Agricultural College is a waste of means. 



President Willits: I speak relatively. You cannot put twice as much 

 work on an acre of land and reap twice as much. This can be done in 

 manufacturing by a system of skilled labor. There is evolution, and I 

 rejoice in it, but it is because lolieat cannot be produced much cheaper than 

 it is, and has been, that its price remains where it is. 



Mr. Van Hoosen: Cannot one man make more wheat now than he could? 



President Willits : Of course, if he has more land. You must put the 

 same labor on more land or else lie idle part of the time. 



Mr. Wm. Ball: Mr. Willits talks only of wheat. Now, while a man pre- 

 pares for wheat he also prepares for the crop that follows. Our system is 

 not now haphazard but works together, and one thing prepares for another. 

 Agriculture advances parallel with other advancement, and they are mutually 

 inter-dependent. 



Rev. W. G. Roberts: There have been gains and improvement, but with 

 these there have been some losses. I remember when a farmer who raised 

 40 bushels of wheat was a great man. It took 10 to 20 men to harvest a crop 



