No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 247 



that you have in Pennsylvania to-day, is along horticultural lines. 

 We have not begun to awaken to the possibilities of development 

 along this particular line. The same may be said of vegetables. 

 Take the great trucking sections in the vicinity of Philadelphia and 

 elsewhere, Pittsburg and Scranton, wherever you lind these small 

 tracts of land devoted to truck farming, and what do you find? You 

 find men not farming 160 acres of land, you can find men who are 

 not working over sixty acres of land, but they are concentrating their 

 efforts on a small area, and from these areas they are making their 

 livelihood and most of them are prosperous, well-to-do citizens. 

 They are making a living, putting by a little surplus at the end of 

 the year, educating their children, keeping them in the public schools, 

 sending them over to State College, or possibly they are in the 

 University or some other institution. We find that sentiment 

 growing throughout the country. 



A few weeks ago it was ray pleasure to visit a little farm on Long 

 Island, farmed by a German, in the general line of truck produce. 

 It was a small tract of land which ordinarily would hardly yield a 

 sufficient income to provide his own living and pay the taxes, but 

 on that ten acres in nine years he tells me, he has taken on an aver- 

 age of a hundred dollars an acre of clear profit, in addition to all the 

 expenses and outlay for handling the garden produce which he pro- 

 duces, and disposes of in Brooklyn and New York. In addition to 

 that he has two sons that he is now keeping in the State Agricultural 

 College, all from the results of that little ten-acre farm. I am sim- 

 ply giving you these facts to show you that there are such farms in 

 existence. We have got to come to a point when we must concen- 

 trate along certain lines. 



One other illustration of this sort and then I am through with 

 this line of talk. It was my pleasure to visit a little five-acre farm 

 in Florida, on my visit to that state in March. From these five acres 

 were taken off last year a crop worth from fSOO to |1,200 an acre. 

 Now that seems almost preposterous on the face of it, yet it is true. 

 One of his crops is lettuce, and that lettuce is now being planted and 

 will be shipped into the New York and Philadelphia markets within 

 sixty days. Following that comes his celery, and following the 

 celery come egg plants. 



Now these are some of the phases of this subject which I have en- 

 deavored to present in the few minutes which I have had at my dis- 

 posal. I have jotted down certain things of a general character for 

 your consideration, and will devote the rest of my time to their con- 

 sideration. 



Nature and experience are the best teachers. Not one of you will' 

 dispute this. For years I have been conscious of the fact that the 

 best training comes from an immediate acquaintenance with thfe 



