No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 205 



located in our own State, whicli has today a fine corps of scientific 

 workers, lieaded by Dr. Thos. F. Hunt, and any farmer in this com- 

 monwealth that does not call on this experiment station for in- 

 formation when he is in trouble in regard to agriculture, is not 

 making use of the means available and placed at his disposal with- 

 out cost. 



These are some of the questions that will be discussed through- 

 out our meeting, and one of our objects is, that these instructors 

 may give instruction to each other and also to the citizens of your 

 county. 



You have been very kind tonight. Judge, to extend the cordial 

 words of welcome. From your talk, I would infer that you would 

 make as good a farmer as you are a Judge, and I think that it is 

 a great mistake that so many of our young men leave the farm 

 and seek to become lawyers, doctors and professional men. We 

 lose the best that our farms produce, and that is the crop of boys 

 and girls. The disposition in the last ten years, among our young 

 men, has been to seek employment in the cities and towns, and we 

 cannot fault them in this, as the recompense has been so large and 

 the labor comparatively easy to the labor on the farm. But I 

 hope the time is not far distant when our boys and girls will see 

 their mistake. The lesson that we are being taught by the strin- 

 gency of the times at present is one that may be of benefit to us 

 in the future. In the agricultural districts of Pennsylvania the 

 times have been good and failures few, because the stability of agri- 

 culture, has been able to carry the people through their losses. 

 But this has not been the case in the cities where our young 

 people received salaries. They spent this each month, and when 

 the times become depressed and they lost their employment, they 

 did not have enough laid by for the rainy day, and had to return 

 to the country to take up their residence with father and mother on 

 the farm. If these young men had, instead of going to the city, 

 engaged in agriculture, they would have been in a position that 

 they would not need to have come back to the old home. 



In my travels throughout the State I find a great deal of land 

 that was tilled years ago and is growing np with briers and elders 

 and returning to forest. This is deplorable. Think of the toil and 

 labor that some good man put on that ground to remove the timber 

 and bring it under cultivation. If we would reduce the size of 

 our farms and make it possible for our boys to secure farms the 

 same as our fathers did for us, it might be that we could induce 

 our sons to stay on the farm. In dollars and cents we are one 

 of the greatest states in agriculture, and if I am correctly informed, 

 we stand second or third in the amount of value of our products 

 of any state in the Union. If this is tru.'^, w^e should stand first, 

 if all our tillable land was brought under cultivation. There is 

 no better market for farm products in the United States than there 

 IS in Pennsyvania. and we are the largest purchasers of food pro- 

 ducts of any state in the Union. We have more miners to feed, 

 more mill workers, more mechanics, more well paid laboring men, 

 than any state in the Union, and why should not our agriculture 

 prosper? This is a question for those who are leaders in agricul- 

 tural lines, to consider. It is something that should be brought 



