No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 263 



pounds of carbo-hjdrates, or within thirteen pounds as much protein 

 as wheat bran, and within ninetj-seven pounds as much carbo-hy- 

 drates. Now, I passed last week up in Yorlc county, where they are 

 just beginning to raise alfalfa, and 1 saw John Anderson, of New 

 Park, York county, who has five or six acres of it, and his alfalfa 

 is now twenty-three inches long. At the rate of a ton and a half to 

 the acre, he will have more from his alfalfa than he will from his 

 wheat, and have four times more food value. Now, I know a little 

 about what it costs to raise this alfalfa; it will cost him about a 

 dollar per acre to plow it, and a dollar and a half to harvest it, or 

 about two dollars and a half an acre, and, with a ton and a half to 

 the acre, you know just exactly what it will cost him. Now, if he 

 makes it right, and at the right time, that six acres of alfalfa will 

 cost him about fifteen or seventeen dollars. If you went into the 

 market today for wheat bran you could not get four tons of it for 

 less than eighty dollars, and he will get as much food value out of 

 one ton of alfalfa as out of four tons of bran. That is what 1 call 

 economy of production, i simply bring up this matter to make us 

 think. 



WHAT PORTION OF THE PROGRAM SHOULD BE FILLED BY 



LOCAL TALENT? 



By Henry W. Nobthup, Dalton, Pa. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: The question assigned to 

 me is one of the puzzling ones that comes up at Farmers' Institutes. 

 Now, I am aware that there should be local talent on the program, 

 but the puzzling part is the amount of it. Now, I went over to Lan- 

 caster county at one lime to take part in a Farmers' Institute there. 

 and T was delighted to iro I hero, hocanso Lancaster is a good place. 

 When I got into town it was market day, and I found the farmers in 

 their big hats lined up around the pavement, exposing their products 

 for sale. A,mong them I saw something that was strange to me; 

 I didn't know what it was; it looked nice, but that was all I knew 

 about it, so I asked the farmer what it was, and he told me it was 

 "smear-case." He had me there; it was an entirely new article to 

 me. I told him there was a Farmers' Institute being held up there, 

 and asked him whether he was coming. He told me "No ; those fel- 

 lows were all doctors, and lawyers, and preachers, and he didn't take 

 much stock in them." Now, he was a Pennsylvania German, and I 

 didn't know German, and I was afraid to tell him I was going to 

 take part in that Institute foi' fear he might take me to be a sus- 

 picious character. I knew he wouldn't take me to be a preacher; 

 but I was afraid he might take me to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or 

 perhaps a saloon keeper, with myself for the best customer. Now, 

 if there had been chic^fly local talent on that program, no doubt that 

 man would have been interested. 



