222 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



does not pay, etc., even in these days of high prices for everything 

 he has to sell and he lives in the finest house in the neighborhood 

 and has an immense red basement barn bursting with the pro- 

 ducts of the soil, besides all this he has 'a nice bank account and 

 ready money in his pockets. All this on one small farm and yet 

 ''farming does not pay." 



In your sister state to the north about thirty per cent, of the 

 people are employed in the trades and manufacturies, about twelve 

 per cent, in agricultural pursuits and about five per cent, in the 

 professions, and practically all of the education is toward the live 

 per cent, and none of it directed specifically toward the twelve and 

 thirty per cent. You may say that this is being remedied by the 

 Agricultural Colleges, but it is not. I would not for a moment 

 detract from their work and usefulness, but it is a physical im- 

 possibility for them to do more than touch the surface of the 

 problem. There are in New York 226,720 farms and in your own 

 state practically the same number. Now, with the present work 

 of the agricultural colleges it would take them nearly one hundred 

 years to furnish one graduate for every hundred" farms if all 

 of the graduates went back to the farm, and unfortunately not 

 more than half of them go back to the soil, the remainder we must 

 have as teachers, experimenters, etc. Thus you see that it is 

 absolutely impossible for our agricultural colleges to cope with the 

 problem at all. 



We need to begin at the bottom and teach agriculture in our 

 public schools, we need to go one step further in our education of 

 the boys and girls and give them the same high school facilities to 

 learn of agriculture as we do to learn of the rudiments of law, 

 theology, and medicine. In other words we need and must have 

 the agricultural high school or secondary schools of agriculture to 

 primarily fit our young people for the pleasure and triumphs of 

 farm life. We need to instil in the minds of the boys and girls in 

 our own homes a love for the soil and pleasant things of farm life 

 instead of placing before their receptive minds the glitter and 

 glamour of city life and the pessimistic side of farming. Not 

 until this is done can we expect to realize in full the utilitarian side 

 of our soil resources. Right here let me say that in doing this we 

 do not need to fetter that bright boy, who perhaps does not like 

 farm work, but has the ability and aspirations to do something 

 else. We need some of these farm boys for future clergymen, 

 teachers, bankers, lawyers, legislators, governors, and presidents of 

 these United States. 



In the betterment of agriculture and utilization of the soil re- 

 sources we must take into consideration all these things. We 

 must study closely every soil and then utilize each for the pro- 

 duction of crops to which it is adapted. This study is funda- 

 mental. We must reforest those soils which never should have 

 been cleared and we must utilize the present forest products of 

 the soil in the best possible way that they may not be wasted as 

 they have been in the past, that the remaining growth may not 

 be destroyed or injured. In order to make the most of our oppor- 

 tunities to feed our own p(^ople as well as to maintain our export 

 trade, we must make those acres now idle contribute their share 



