264 ANNUAL, REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



and when you talk about the benefits of Farmers' Institutes, I have 

 stood b}^ and watched them for all these years. Before I was in the 

 work, I am ashamed to say, I used to sit back and criticise the work, 

 and criticise the men who were trying to start the work — men like 

 the Chairman,. Col. Woodward, Mr. Critchfield, Mr. Kahler, who 

 were trying to help the farmer by getting this good work started. 

 These are the men to whom you should take off your hats today. 

 Then when I went into the work I came in for my share of criticism. 

 When I went into the work, Mr. Martin sent me down to Mont- 

 gomery county; I was there two days, and did my best, and then 

 some one called me aside, and a,sked me what I had done for the 

 politicaJ machine because I got the job. I told him I had done 

 nothing to get the job, because I am one of the staunchest Dem- 

 ocrats — and there is no collar round my head either. 



There is no use trjdng to describe the benefits of the Farmers' 

 Institute to the farmer of Pennsylvania, and to the American people; 

 it benefits not only the farmer, but the man in the city as well. 

 When a man farms more intelligently, he benefits not only himself, 

 but everyone dependent on the farmer for his subsistence. The 

 greatest benefit the Farmers' Institute has created is the demand 

 for more Farmers' Institutes. W^hen the farmers of Pennsylvania 

 are told they can't have an institute, they go down and get up a 

 meeting and talk institute until they get one. That is the way things 

 are going in Pennsylvania, and not only in Pennsylvania, but all 

 over the United States as well. 



I have just come from Alabama, where they are doing everything 

 they can to get the best talent to talk to the farmer and are having 

 one institute after the other, and out in Iowa they are going to have 

 more than a hundred of them this summer. Why this institute 

 movement is growing to such an extent that if, within a few years, 

 I don't talk to a Farmers' Institute in the city of Chicago, I'll miss 

 my guess. Mr. Harman tells me that they have more inquiries in 

 regard to agriculture from the city than from the country. That 

 has largely been brought about by Farmers' Institutes. I believe 

 that the boys at State College whom Brother Agee talks about were 

 brought there largely through the agency of Farmers' Institutes. I 

 know that when I am at a Farmers' Institute and talk education to 

 them I talk State College. I don't condemn any man for differing 

 with me, but when you talk about your Farmers' Institutes, and the 

 benefits to be derived from them, I don't see how any one can differ 

 with me. Now, I don't farm like Brother Detrich; he does not 

 agree with me there; he believes in, and pratices and preaches the 

 doctrine of barnyard manure. I believe in putting the sweet clover 

 plant and plowing it in under. When the land is poor, and we can- 

 not raise crops, along comes the sweet clover and enriches it. I 

 saw the people of the South, where the land was poor and would 

 raise only scrub timber, cut down that timber, put on a little fer- 

 tilizer to make that land rich, and then put it in sweet clover. I 

 am in favor of Brother Detrich's plan of putting on manure to en- 

 rich the soil, and then putting it in sweet clover. He has the barn 

 that he can turn into the factory; not all of us have that, or can 

 have it, but the sweet clover, and the legumes all of us can have. 



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