208 ANNUAL REI'ORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



KEKPONSE TO ADDRESS OF WICLCO.ME 



By R. V. KESTER, Grampian, Pa. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: In behalf of the vi.sitors 

 who have come to your beautiful city to spend a few days, we thank 

 you for the words of welcome so aptly spoken. While we recognize 

 this part of the program as something formal and perfunctory, yet 

 we have already seen enough and heard enough to c(^nvince us that 

 your words are sincere and we shall take your words of welcome at 

 their face value. Surely you must be a hospitable people to invite 

 two bodies of agricultural people to your city in one year. We 

 appreciate this because it shows you to be a people alive to the im- 

 portance of agriculture. 



Ilepresenting, as we do, the several counties of this great Com- 

 monwealth, we will, if we can, impress you still more with the 

 importance of this great industry in the Keystone State; a State 

 far-famed for its wealth in minerals and the products cf its countless 

 factories, but which we are prone to fojgeL holds a place in the front 

 ranks of agriculture as well. We have, perhaps, been too busy or 

 too modest to advertise ourselves as others have done for them- 

 selves, or perhaps we do not fully realize that no other industry 

 in the State jjroduces so much wealth or employs so many people. 



While we are pronouncing these mildly boastful words, we want 

 to acknowledge to you that we have not so nearly reached perfec- 

 tion in our art as have those in many of the other great industries 

 of the State. LJecause, lirst, there is more to learn; and second, 

 because we have not had the chance in the past to learn the funda- 

 mentals of our business. Yet, in saying this, we w^ould have you 

 know that we feel ourselves to be as intelligent in this respect as 

 those in states more purely agricultural. It has been said by those 

 who know that the Farmers' Institutes in this State, of which this 

 is an epitome, are equal to any held in the Union. That our De- 

 partment of Agriculture, our State Board, our Granges and other 

 farmers' organizations are laboring as earnestly and effectually as 

 those of any other states. 



There are three things that those who have the best interest of 

 agriculture at heart are laboring for: Better rural schools and a 

 school curriculum suited to the needs of rural people; a better un- 

 derstanding of the principles and p(»ssibilities of agriculture so that 

 it may become more renumerative and hence more attractive to the 

 young men and women ; and third that agriculture receive at the 

 hands of our law-makers a just and proper consideration. That vhey 

 recognize the fact that the "Infant Industries" have become overbear- 

 ing towards the parent. You who are city born and bred may query 

 why this work of education should be done at public expense. You 

 will recognize the justice of it when you remember that agriculture 

 lies at the foundation of all other business. That when panic seizes 

 and throttles all other business, agriculture is the giant hand that 

 saves. 



