BANCROFT INSTITUTE, 271 



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There is no agricultural State in the nation that produces as many dollars 

 per acre as Michijian. , 



No State has a more intelligent population or grander institutions. It 

 was more than fifty years ago that I came to my present home. At that time 

 we had there the wolves and the Indians for our neighbors, so you see that 

 in speaking of your needs I am speaking from my own experience. But our 

 needs to-day are different from those of forty years ago. We need now 

 many things that were of little account to us at that time. Then the indi- 

 vidual was of greater account than to-day. His strength of arm and skill of 

 hand were needed to fell the forest, reap the crop, and to do by hand all 

 those various things which are now done by machinery. To-day we write by 

 machinery, we talk by telephone, we mow and reap with machines, we load 

 and unload our hay with machines, in short we almost live by machinery, 

 and it is necessary for our welfare and to hold our proportionate influence in 

 the affairs of the world that we should adapt ourselves to these changed 

 conditions. It needs more skill, more knowledge, more brain power to use 

 successfully these varied appliances than were needed merely to use our 

 muscles. The greatest and most effective of our machines is cooperation and 

 organization whereby we progress with the impetus of numbers. No class is 

 so slow to appreciate the value of this aid as the farmers. Now I care not 

 whether this organization be the club or grange, or what it be, so that the 

 work be accomplished. We need these agencies to increase our knowledge. 

 I assert from my acquaintance and experience that there is no occupation 

 requiring a broader or deeper knowledge than the proper managment of a 

 farm. Now the reason why a farmer needs to know more than most men is 

 that we deal with the unexpected. We cannot control our surroundings, 

 and we need to be quick and ready in order to adapt ourselves to our 

 conditions. 



You have Just paid your taxes and they have doubtless seemed heavy, but 

 I dare venture that more is wasted on the farms of this county by mismanage- 

 ment every year than would pay your taxes twice over. * * * 



Now, lawyers and doctors are able to go straight to their books to prove 

 their cases, but you, farmers, can not settle your problems so easily ; you can 

 not tell what it is going to cost you next year to raise a bushel of wheat. 

 You ought to know what it did cost you last year, and from the collective 

 experiences of the past you can form some estimate for the future. But even 

 the best of estimates may be wholly wrong. ***** 



In Cass county the other day I heard a paper read on how to restore 

 exhausted soils. I shuddered to think of Michigan soils being exhausted. 

 A farmer who wears out his soil is not far from total depravity. We own 

 our soils it is true by government patent, but we live here but a short time,, 

 and we owe it to our successors to fertilize these fields and leave them as good 

 as or better than we find them. Fovir years ago I paid a visit to my birth-place. 

 I reached it at sundown in the fall. The hill was smaller than I remembered 

 it, the brook was dry. The farm was for sale. I asked the price, it was 120 

 per acre or $18 cash. I asked the trouble. The man said, " It's worn out. 

 It is a clay and bakes hard. It won't grow grass nor anything good, but only 

 a coarse weed." 



I went out on the farm and saw that it needed brains mixed up with the 

 Boil. It was suffering for under-draining. 



Theory is good but facts are better. 



