158 state; pomoivOGical society. 



don't know how many are employed in the United States at the 

 present time, but I think it is safe to say that every state in the 

 Union employs from ten to fifty men, perhaps some of them 

 more in connection with the college and experiment station work. 

 The Department of Agriculture at Washington employed, the 

 last time I knew, something like 3,500 men in agricultural lines, 

 in different lines of agriculture. 



There are opportunities also for the men who have the train- 

 ing and the executive ability to handle funds and handle busi- 

 ness, to take the capital belonging to other men and utilize that 

 to bring a return in agricultural lines. Men of wealth are con- 

 stantly seeking for an opportunity to place that wealth where 

 it may be safely employed and yield them a business return. 

 They don't ask for fancy returns ; they know that those fancy 

 returns are not to be gotten with safety; if they can get straight 

 business returns on their capital, they will be glad to put their 

 money into land. Many of them would. There have been in 

 the last few months particularly good opportunities for invest- 

 ment in securities, but look at the condition today, how the 

 value of those securities has dropped fifty, one hundred per cent 

 in some cases, and the man who thought himself worth $50,000 

 •six months ago may find himself worth $25,000 or $30,000 at 

 market prices today. Now money put in land does not meet 

 with that great fluctuation, and there are shrewd business men 

 who are looking for opportunities to put their money in that 

 way. Many, many more of them would do it if they could have 

 the men to manage that land when they get it. There are few 

 men who can take a business proposition and carry it through 

 to a business issue. Now the young man cannot expect to do 

 that when he graduates from college, because to make a success- 

 ful business requires an ability which cannot be imparted in the 

 class-room. It requires natural business ability. It requires 

 executive ability which can only come with age and training. 

 The man who has within him the possibilities for that line of 

 work may readily get the experience and grow into positions 

 of that kind. 



More and more men are seeking summer homes, who find 

 their homes in the city and are looking back to the farm as they 

 •grow older. It is the almost universal experience, you meet a 



