18 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



For this reason this Department should have sufficient funds to 

 send out qualified experts who can study soils, climatic, market and 

 labor conditions, and by actual field demonstration show how to 

 increase the productivity and the latent fertility of the soil and raise 

 crops, for which theie is a well paying market, with the labor avail- 

 able on the farm. To fill positions of this kind requires men who 

 know soils and climatic conditions and who can make labor efficient, 

 who understand markets and who can put the farmer into a position 

 to do the same things. 



The census of 1910 shows clearly that the increased production 

 of the acre in order to maintain her agricultural, manufacturing and 

 mining prestige has become the watchword of the hour for Penn- 

 sylvania. 



DEMONSTRATION WORK 



This Department is the agency by which this demonstration work 

 must be done because it is through the Department that the State 

 Government keeps in touch with the agricultural interests, the most 

 potent in the Commonwealth. The surrender of this educational 

 work to an^^ other agency would mean the alienation of the farming 

 interests from the State Government, where all other public educa- 

 tional agencies are located and where this, one of the most essential, 

 must certainly also be located. This is not an academic question, 

 but a utilitarian one. Academics and utility up to this time have 

 not mingled well, and for these and many more reasons I feel that 

 the surrender of this work to an agency not directly under the con- 

 trol of the State, and upon which the State could not lay her re- 

 straining or encouraging hand whenever it may be deemed necessary 

 would be as great a dilemma as to surrender her public educational 

 work and hand it over to an agency not under her immediate con- 

 trol. Therefore, like the educational department, this Department 

 should be equipped with funds to do this educational work in the 

 most efficient manner, for before we can have education, before we 

 can have scientific investigation, manufacturing, mining or trans- 

 portation we must be fed, and the question of feeding the x^eople 

 of Pennsylvania is becoming more important every year and some- 

 thing must be done to improve this condition. An appropriation 

 was asked for from the last Legislature by this Department for demon- 

 stration work along the lines indicated, but it failed dining the last 

 hours of the session. Requests come to us from many sources for 

 information along all lines of agriculture, but for want of sufficient 

 appropriation little help can be given. 



BETTER PRICES FOR FARM PRODUCTS NECESSARY 



It must be made interesting for the farmer to increase the pro- 

 ducts of his farm. As was said in a former report, if the farmer 

 by keeping down production can realize as much out of ten dairy 

 cows of equal capacity as he can out of twenty he is foolish for 

 keeping and attending the twenty, but if by this demonstration 

 work this Department can show the farmer that by keeping twenty 

 of the better grade of cows already referred to, he will realize for 

 the ten additional cows approximately as much per cow as he will 

 for each of the ten cows, he will become interested, and it will not 



