606 RKroUT OK OFFIOK <>K KXTKIilMKNT STATIONS. 



laif^i'st ii'sulls ill tlic cxtciL^'nm <>f oiir iniKlintivc ;irca :iii<l in llic curiHervatioii <>f tlie 

 fertility of imicli of I lie himl now lu-iiiji fanned. 



Another luaiicli of rural engineering is the eonstruction of c. )untry roads. Incrt«fle 

 in pojmlation in oiir cities has resulted in lartrer areas l)einiii: devoted to tiic produc- 

 tion of perishahle proihicts — such as milk, jjarden truck, and fruit. The niarketinj^ 

 of these has greatly increased the travel on country mads. The character of these 

 products is such as to demand <pii(;k transixirtation, thus rendering it necessary that 

 the roads should be hard and smooth, and this is l)eing emphasized by the fact that 

 the automobile and traction en<rine re(|nire a better roadway than th(^ horse ami cart. 

 To build roads suited to the conditions of modern life, esjiecially in the vicinity of 

 eities, reijuires a knowledge of engineering wholly different from that of a quarter of 

 a century ago ami demands not fmly that the courses of instruction be strengthened, 

 but that facilities be provided for experimentation n'gardingthe best materials to use. 



It is believed, however, that the greatest o]i]iortunities for students ami for the 

 iiii|ii(ivemeiit of the general agricultural j'racticc of this coimlry will be found in the 

 systematic study of tlie manufacture and use of agricultural machinery. This country 

 is the greatest maker and user of farm machinery in the world, and it is due largely 

 to this fact that we have become the most ])rosi)erous agricultural c<nintry in the 

 world. It has eiialilcd the farmer to pay the high prices for labor created by the 

 competition of oin- manufactories an<l has taken away from farm life much of the 

 drudgery of manual toil and nuule it in the liest sense an intellectual pursuit. 

 Improvements in machinery have lirought abfjut a steady reduction in the cost of 

 production, notwithstanding the steady rise in wages. The self-binder enables one 

 man to a<'comiilisli the work done by four men with the best machinery in use at the 

 close of the civil war. The check-row corn planter and the two-horse cultivator 

 have, according to a recent writer, lessened by more than half the labor cost of pro- 

 ducing a bushel of Indian corn. Machinery has enabled the eastern farmer to adopt 

 intensive farming. The windmill jiumps tlu- water used in the dairy, the centrifugal 

 separator skims the milk, and water or wiml jMjwer runs the churn. The gasoline 

 or steam motor is beginning to haul the product of the truck farm to the city market, 

 rendering the farmer e(jually indej)endent of horses and railways. 



In the same way it has enabled the western farmer to plant and harvest large 

 areas, notwithstanding the scanty lal)<»r supply to be found there. Last year a trac- 

 tion engine in Calfornia cut and thrashed over a hundred acres of wheat in a single 

 day, doing the work of nearly one hundred horses with modern mowing and reaping 

 machinery, and equaling the result accomplished by that many men and horses lifty 

 years ago. Less than a century separates the operation of machines like this and the 

 cutting of grain with the scythe and thrashing it with the flail, and tlie imjirove- 

 ments which have been made in harvesting machinery have been duj)licated in 

 many other lines of farm work. There are now traction engines which plow 30 acres 

 of ground in a day. Recently a gasoline motor has been invented which jiromises to 

 be as successful in displacing the horse in certain lines of work on the farm as the 

 automobile is on the country roads. 



The demantls which these changes are making on the farmer for a knowledge of 

 the principles of mechanics and for a certain amount of skill in their application is 

 so much greater than it was a century ago that it can not be stated as a percentage. 

 The question we have to consider is whether we have recf>gnized this change in the 

 courses of instruction in ijur agricultural colleges. Your committee is unanimously 

 of the opinion that we have not, and that the facilities for instruction are not in 

 keeping with tlie imjxjrtance of this branch of agriculture. In the majority of insti- 

 tutions the same kind of mechanical training is given agricultural students as to 

 students wdio expect to work in factories, while the w(jrk U) be done by the farmer 

 in the use of machines and tools is of a radically different character. On the farm 

 one man must do man\' kinds of work, and hen(;e must use many different kinds of 



