356 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



much finished product and of as good quality as possible with a given amount 

 of raw material, procured at the least outlay. If he manufactures butter he 

 must run his coavs — which are his machinery — with the same watchful and 

 intelligent care which is exercised by his neighbor who conducts a sugar 

 refinery or a cotton mill. He must see that his cows have a perfectly balanced 

 ration, with the properly proportioned amounts of protein, starch, and fat. 

 He must get his rations at the cheapest possible rate, and, following the 

 example of other manufacturers who sell a finished product and buy a waste 

 product, he will sell his grain and buy cottonseed meal, brewers' grains, bran, 

 and other wastes of manufacture to make his finished butter product. 



He will not strive to make more butter than his neighbor unless he can 

 prove that the extra pound can be profitably made. He will make special 

 study of the subjects immediately connected with the particular branch of 

 agriculture which he practices, and he will supplement his own experience by 

 the teachings of recognized authorities, and he will make use of every assist- 

 ance which can be rendered by such accurate experiments as can be conducted 

 and recorded at the best agricultural experiment stations yet to be established 

 In other words, he will not be content to remain a mere laborer, but will 

 assume his true position as the administrative head of a complicated but 

 intelligently constructed and well ordered system. 



Farming of this kind will pay to-day and in the future. It will pay not 

 only in the narrow and pecuniary sense, but it will grow a crop of better men. 

 The coming farmer who survives the fierce struggle of close competition will 

 develop out of the necessities of his surroundings into a broader minded man 

 than his predecessor. 



A good deal of pleasant flattery is indulged in by politicians and public 

 speakers when addressing farmers, on the ennobling influence of agriculture. 

 Agriculture will be what her followers make her. No employment is enno- 

 bling which does not require brains, and it is not a misfortune that from this 

 time forth the farmer who succeeds must study and think, and have a trained 

 mind in a sound body. 



But all success in agriculture does not consist in accumulation of material 

 interests. A recent writer has given so clearly the idea of success from another 

 standpoint, which I quote: "I have in my mind's eye a number of men (I 

 use the term in a connubial sense, for if there ever was a pursuit in which the 

 wife is truly the better half, it is in farming) who started in agricultural pur- 

 suits with only a few hundred or a thousand or two dollars saved, it may be 

 from their wages or the fruit of a small inheritance. In many cases it was 

 barely enough to stock a farm and pay the usual one-third purchase money» 

 But under the double spur of love of ownership and the necessity of meeting 

 their engagements they bent every energy to free themselves from debt and 

 make their homesteads entirely their own. Brought up in the habit of strict 

 economy, their children shared in the hardships of adversity, as they after- 

 ward shared in the brightening prospects of prosperity. In this stern but 

 hopeful struggle with the force of circumstances, the parents developed in 

 mind and character, and filled their place among the most honored and useful 

 members of society; while the children, thanks to their early training, to 

 free schools, and an educating press, became fitted for that higher struggle 

 which increasing civilization demands. Who shall say that these men and 

 women, although they may have amassed only a few thousand dollars, have 

 not in the highest sense of the term, made farming pay, and life a success. 

 "And still more than for the individuals, for our country have their lives- 



