232 ANNUAL REPORT OP THE Off. Doc. 



yet I hold it would be equally true^with either branches of animal 

 industry in connection with the acre. 1 have ^iven up all hope of 

 legislation ever doing very much for the farmer, but 1 can see that 

 the well being of Llie people and ttie hnvs of tlie land are depend- 

 ing, on the other hand, veiy hu-gcly oii the acre. If the acre is 

 made to produce, and that is taught both by science and practice 

 that it can be done, then it only remains for the farmer to grasp 

 the situation and do it. The watch maker one time only had a shop; 

 now it is the factory that makes a watch; the factory has been able 

 to cheapen production to such an extent that almost every citizen 

 who wants to carry a timepiece, the cost of it is within his means 

 to do so. It is just the same with the acre. I do not believe the 

 people of towns and cities can afford to pay much more for the 

 products of the farmer than they are at i)resent. I have gone to 

 dairies in the city where milk is retailed by the pint and quart 

 to see who would buy and in what quantities, and from the looks 

 of the men, women and children, pitchers With handles broken off, 

 broken cups, mugs, kettles, paint cans and earthen ware, all turned 

 into service for taking home milk from the city retail dairies. 

 Rents and taxes regulate wages to a large extent in towns and 

 cities, and these in turn influence the price of living and I cannot 

 see how the market price of the farmer's produce is going to be 

 much higher, so that the farmer is shut up to the fact that the 

 acre must be his hopeful source of real profit. 



It is for this reason that I have taken up this subject in the 

 interest of the farmer to show him that he holds today in his 

 own hand the only source of wealth which the increased produc- 

 tion of the acre is accomplishing, turning his barn into a factory, 

 and make a product for the market and also make the most valu- 

 able by-product that is known to science and farm practice, namely, 

 stable manure. I think that Professor Thorne who delivered the 

 fourth lecture on soil at this convention, with a chart of actual ex- 

 periments dating back into the last century, showed that the manure 

 made from animals varied in value from |1.50 per ton up to |5.00. 

 And here it is, strange to say, that the variation was not in the 

 animals, but in man's care of it. Here are four lectures on soil, 

 all from a different standpoint at this convention, and yet every 

 one is a strong plea for the acre and its possible increase in pro- 

 ductiveness, depending upon the farmer turning his barn into a 

 factory and taking just as good care of the manure as he does of the 

 milk. Two thirds of Prof. Thome's invaluable lecture to the sane 

 farmer was taken up in showing the frightful loss of manure by 

 the wasteful methods of farmers in throwing manure in heaps, 

 in open barnyards and not covered barnyards. The Professor would 

 then say in going over the different experiments, and this was 

 taken direct from the stable with both the solid and liquid manure 

 saved in water tight gutters and proves to be of very high value. 

 Why, gentlemen, there could be no more conclusive facts or argu- 

 ments taken actually from field-tests and showed to the farmers of 

 Pennsylvania than those facts and figures of Prof. Thorne. In ad- 

 dition to all that Prof. Thorne said, I am the living exponent of 

 turning the old farm barn into the farm factory and developing the 

 acre from a run down and depleted condition into six and eight 



