A Statement to the People of New York State 

 on the Agricultural Situation. 



By L. H. Bailey, 



Dean of the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University. 

 * 



All of us need to realize in a new way the fundamental 

 importance of agriculture as a basis rot only of livelihood for 

 millions of people, but also as a foundation of human institutions 

 and of much of our civilization. Agriculture is not merely an 

 occupation in which men earn a living ; it is the condition on which 

 a great series of occupations rest and out of which the ideas of 

 millions of people grow. 



I. Civilization oscillates between two poles. At the one extreme 

 is the so-called laboring class, and at the other are the syndicated 

 and corporate and monopolized interests. Both these elements or 

 phases tend to go to extremes. Many efforts are being made to 

 weld them together into some sort of a share-earning or common 

 capacity, but without very great results. Between these two poles 

 is the great agricultural class, which is the natural balance-force 

 or the middle-wheel of society. These people are steady, con- 

 servative, abiding by the law and are to a greater extent than we 

 recognize the controlling element in our civilization. 



The man on the farm has the opportunity to found a dynasty. 

 City properties may come and go, rented houses may be removed, 

 stocks and bonds may rise and fall, but the land still remains; 

 and a man can remain on the land and subsist with it so long as 

 he knows how to handle it properly. It is largely, therefore, a 

 question of education as to how long any family can establish itself 

 on a piece of land. In the increasing mobility of our civilization 

 it is also increasingly important that we have many anchoring 

 places ; and these anchoring places are the farms. 



Therefore, what the agricultural condition of the old eastern 

 states is to be is a question of far greater importance than the 

 mere raising of produce. It is as important to develop the agri- 

 abstract of an address delivered in the Grange Hall at the State Fair, September 

 17, 1909. 



