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oos Bureau op Farmers' Institutes. 



conditions must change again, as our increasing population maker 

 larger and larger demands for food, while the supply of land on 

 which it can be raised becomes proportionally smaller. But there 

 Is no earthly need to postpone the beginning of this recovery to 

 an indefinite epoch in the uncertain future. Let the farmers of 

 the East put forth but a mere fraction of the power which they 

 most proi)erly hold, if they would only use it, over our national 

 legislation, to stop this tremendous and tremendously cruel and 

 unjust com])etition by the beneficiaries of our own government, 

 and especially to strike at this hydra of an irrigation scheme in 

 all its phases whenever it appears, and the possible prosperity of 

 the vague future may be realized within our own time, in a solid 

 financial return for that form of ktbor which most deserves the 

 triple boon of a bright and hopeful youth, a contented mind at 

 maturity, and a competence with honor in declining years. Not, 

 of course, that any legislation, or the absence of any legislation, 

 can of itself make all farmers prosperous, any more than any 

 legislation, or the absence of any legislation, can of itself make 

 all men honest and prevent cheating. But although legislation is 

 often impotent for good, it is always, if unwise or unjust, almost 

 omnipotent for evil; and at the present time unwise and unjust 

 legislation creates the one only cloud in the otherwise bright sky 

 of American husbandry. To prevent the enactment of unwise and 

 unjust laws, having for their sole purpose the enrichment of a 

 cdinparatively restricted section of the country at the expense of 

 all the rest — this is the one paramount duty of the hour. 



