72 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



or nine different varieties. The first were planted in Illinois and Michi- 

 gan. The first beet-sugar factory in this country was built in the year 

 1869. And this industry of raising beets for sugar has constantly grown 

 and developed from then until now, — that is this last year, the product 

 of sugar beets was in value something over $20,000,000. The Department 

 has not only been encouraping the growing of sugar beets but has been 

 conducting experiments of cross fertilization, cultivation, etc., to increase 

 the sugar output of the beets until today the portion of sugar in the beets 

 is as high as twenty per cent. And I don't believe the day is far distant 

 when the United States of America will produce every pound of sugar 

 that we consume. 



In 1890 Honorable James Wilson, of Iowa, became Secretary of Agri- 

 culture, and under his administration of the Department the farmers of 

 the country have been benefited more and the country as a whole has been 

 benefited more from then until now than had been accomplished in all the 

 time prior to 1890. The reason for this is obvious. Mr. Wilson is a 

 practical farmer; he operated a farm at home in Iowa, and most sucess- 

 fully too. And when he entered that Department he took with him 

 the knowledge and value of actual experience. No sooner had he taken 

 hold of that great Department than he began to look around to see what 

 he could do to help the farmers of the country. While Secretary Wilson 

 came from Iowa, he was nevertheless familiar wtih the other regions of 

 the United States, and one of the first things that he did was to go to the 

 plant pathologists and other scientists and get from them their ideas as 

 to what they thought was good. He wanted to get something that would 

 be well adapted to the semi-arid regions of Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma 

 and the Dakotas, and his efforts along this line have resulted in the 

 growth of alfalfa to the great extent that it is now grown and also in 

 showing that we can grow a good winter wheat in this section of the 

 country. Our wheat crop is now almost entirely of the winter variety. 

 One of the best things that has come about under filr. Wilson's administra- 

 tion is the great strides made in the growth of alfalfa in this country. 

 Alfalfa has been one of the best things ever brought out for the great 

 northwest, — Minnesota and the Dakotas, where a hardy variety is planted. 



Another of the valuable and important lines of work carried on by 

 this Department is the investigations in the Bureau of Soils. Here in the 

 so-called great northwest the people think their soil will always be good 

 and so far as they can see it looks as though it is just as rich and fertile 

 as ever. Mr. Wilson knows this is not so and has undertaken to show to 

 the people why their soil will not always be just as rich as it is now. The 

 experts sent out by the Department of Agriculture to study the question 

 of soils have finally reached this conclusion: That the soil does not 

 become worn out, — that the soil here in Richardson County is still just 

 as rich and fertile as when it was broken up; that the cause of the decline 

 in crop production on soil that has been producing wheat for fifty years 

 is due to the fact that the soils do not give off their poisons. Take a cer- 

 tain piece of land and plant the same crop there year after year and the 



I 



