206 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



productive power of the soil was lessened, something confronted 

 the people at large that was not a theory but an emphatic condition. 

 If I read history aright, that is to say, if 1 read correctly between 

 the lines, because the history of agriculture was never written, every 

 civilization that this world ever saw grew and prospered as long 

 as agriculture prospered, but as soon as the soil and the tiller thereof 

 was neglected or robbed so as to cripple or demoralize his work, 

 material was manufactured for the historian to write the decline 

 and fall of that civilization. I find this true of Egypt, Asia Minor, 

 Greece and Kome. The trend in this country was heading for the 

 same goal ; but several factors altered conditions and we are now 

 trying to relocate on a new basis. Unlike in the older civilizations, 

 not the state, but the individual owns the land in this country and 

 when conditions became unfavorable he could let the soil and its fer- 

 tility "go to the dogs" to use a familiar expression, and that is what 

 he did in many cases. 



WHAT HAS HAPPENED 



Thousands of square miles of former farming land have been 

 abandoned and many more thousands of square miles have been 

 abused and neglected until they produce only the fifth or tenth of 

 what they did some years ago. Five or ten years ago it was about 

 impossible to sell a farm. An active intelligent boy would hardly 

 think of farming, and all roads lead to town and were traveled in 

 but one direction. If the gold output is great or small, the tariff 

 high or low, the trusts ''busted" or not when the consumers in- 

 creased rapidly and the producers and their produce decreased 

 rai)idly the inevitable arrived, and if you would learn the manner 

 of its reception just read the dailies, weeklies and monthlies as they 

 are dumped before you by the wagon load. A few wise men forsaw 

 all this trouble and tried to avert it by 



Organizing the farmers. 



Instructing the farmers. 



Providing better educational facilities for farmers children. 



Affording by mail delivery, parcels post and otherwise good facili- 

 ties of communication and transportation. 



In all these efforts, the Farmers' Institute movement took the 

 initiative and the lead, except in organization, that being the mother 

 of all rural agitation and education. I will not become reminiscent, 

 though tempted : In our own State this work was started by a good 

 Chester county farmer, followed by a Centre county farmer, and 

 during the last ten years the work was in the hands of a Lawrence 

 county farmer, who threw his whole soul and energy into the work 

 and developed an institute system second to none in this United 

 States. This institute movement set into motion forces that were 

 not dreamed of several years ago. It not only compelled farmers 

 to think but all other classes of intelligent people. 



Who dreamed that the railroad people would spend time and 

 money to help the farmer develop his business? Every big railroad 

 system now appropriates a fund for this purpose. To-day our Nor- 

 mal School authorities are in a ferment about the question of pre- 



