378 ANNUAL REPORT OP THE Off. Doc. 



specialties anywhere in llie world. The best scientists that this 

 country' possesses are engaged in that Department in scientific work 

 along agricultural lines, and the work that they do is respected and 

 quoted as authority by scientific men everywhere throughout the 

 world. That Department in the last 40 years has, as 1 have stated, 

 develojjed from nine men to almost 4,000; from an expenditures of 

 |G0,000 a year to an expenditure of |5,223,000 a year. The Depart- 

 ment has its experts out all over this country, and in foreign lands, 

 searching for plants, animals and methods that will be of use to us 

 in our agriculture here at home. Reports of what they are finding 

 and doing are being published from time to time in bulletins, and 

 these are mailed free of charge to all who are sufficiently interested 

 to send their names, postoffice addresses and make a definite 

 request. 



Along with this work that is being done by the National Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, is that of the Agricultural Colleges in this 

 country, which have sent out in this same period about 50,000 grad- 

 uates, and that of the Experiment Stations that now have over 700 

 scientific men engaged constantly in endeavoring to solve the mys- 

 teries of agriculture, and who are publishing the results of their dis- 

 coveries for our use. 



These are the forces that have raised agriculture from a common 

 calling, into the most scientific and difficult of any that the world 

 has to-day. These are the institutions that have brought us w^ere 

 we are. 



The men who made speeches here this morning and yesterday, 

 could not have presented the truths they did if they had not had the 

 facts furnished them by these laborers in these scientific institutions 

 w^hich have been established within the past 50 years. We are in- 

 debted to science for w'hat we are, and the great progress of agricul- 

 ture in these recent years, which is the marvel of the w^orld, has 

 come through the work of scientific men who have directed their at- 

 tention, not to the professions, but to the development of agricul- 

 ture, and the elfect is that we are becoming informed in regard to 

 the important truths that for so long have been hidden from our 

 view. We are becoming uwn instead of machines. 



It w^as well said here yesterday ''that a man cannot rise above 

 what he knows." We cannot rise above our ideals, and if we do not 

 know, and will not learn, we will remain exactlv on that level all our 

 lives. If we do know or have aspirations for knowing more we can 

 at least pursue our ideals and often realize greater success than at 

 the outset we had ever hoped. There are being held up before us 

 to-day in the scientific world great truths which we are endeavoring 

 to understand and to apply, and scientific men are reaching out to us 

 their hands to lift ns out of the difficulties that surround us into a 



