DAIRY, SEED IMPROVEMENT, STOCK BREEDERS' MEETINGS 185 



his corn in the old-fashioned way, by drawing it across a piece 

 of iron set in a board, while I built cob houses on the floor. 

 Everything is changed. In no department of human effort has 

 the old given place to the new more than it has in the depart- 

 ment of agriculture. When I was a young farmer, we heard 

 nothing of commercial dairying, commercial plant breeding or 

 cattle breeding; now we have our agricultural colleges and we 

 find every new subject of any account given a column or more 

 than a column in every newspaper, whole pages devoted to farm 

 news, and we have a great department of our government 

 represented by a man who sits in the cabinet, the Secretary of 

 Agriculture. Everywhere there is an awakening to the im- 

 portance of agriculture, and it is well, for it is the noblest, the 

 •most fruitful, the most honorable, the most useful to man, and 

 it has always been regarded as an honor to be a successful one. 



George Washington in his first add'ress to Congress recom- 

 mended the establishment of an agricultural department. Later 

 the recommendation was renewed in 1817 by another president, 

 and was almost unanimously voted down, in an age when farm- 

 ing predominated, and was better represented in legislative 

 halls than any other body. George Washington and Benjamin 

 Franklin were members of the first agricultural association in 

 this country. Abraham Lincoln, our great president, found it 

 of advantage to foster the interests of agriculture. It was dur- 

 ing his administration, as we all know, that the famous "Mill 

 Act" was passed, which has given us our agricultural colleges, 

 including the department at our own University. It was during 

 his administration that a Bureau of Agriculture was estab- 

 lished. Subsequently in the administration of President Cleve- 

 land agriculture rose to an equal position with the other de- 

 partments of the government. 



All these changes are exceedingly gratifying, and yet, on the 

 whole, what are our gains and our losses? From the country 

 during the earlier years of our history and later down to the 

 present time, we have been deriving the strength of the nation, 

 the physical strength, the health, the brain as well as the brawn 

 that developed our industries and furnished a leadership in all 

 the affairs of our country. Nine-tenths of all the great men of 

 our country, acknowledged to be the great leaders, have had 

 actual contact with the soil as workers. Will this continue? 



