No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 389 



giving the question their serious attention. Last year in discussing 

 the question of "A Better Agriculture" I called your attention to 

 the crop returns of the United States. We grow corn, about twenty- 

 eight bushels to the acre; wheat, 18.5, and other crops in similar low 

 averages. If we do our duty we will have to show people how to 

 grow 25 to 3U bushels of wheat to the acre instead of 13.5, and 100 

 bushels of corn instead of 28. 



I have just come from Nebraska where I attended a great agri- 

 cultural meeting of farmers from all over that State. In an inter- 

 view with the Director of their Experiment Station, the question of 

 the value of methods in use in dry farming was raised, when the 

 director asked his assistant to read me the result of some of their 

 experiments out in the ^Vestern part of the State, on the semi-arid 

 lands, where the rainfall is only 12 inches in a year. He showed 

 how by plowing for wheat at a certain time, using the ordinary 

 methods, they got about twenty bushels to the acre. By another 

 method they got 27 bushels to the acre, and by still another they 

 got 59 bushels to the acre. It is certainly worth knowing how to 

 increase the yield from 20 bushels to the acre to 59. We are coming 

 to a time when we will have to show the people how to raise these 

 large crops with certainty each year, notwithstanding varying clim- 

 atic conditions and varieties of soil involved. If it can be done out 

 on the arid lauds, what should we be able to do on our mellow, cul- 

 tivated lands here in this State? 



These important results are coming to us through investigations, 

 carefully conducted, and data accurately kept by men who are 

 trained to test and to discover. I would like you to estimate what 

 that Experiment Station is worth to the State of Nebraska that 

 shows how in that Western country they can grow, instead of 20 

 bushels, 59 or 60 bushels of wheat to the acre, as the result of their 

 investigations. There is no investment that promises as good re- 

 turns to the people out there as money expended in this investiga- 

 tion work. We have an experiment station of our own, and a State 

 college, which has recently taken on new life. Those of you who 

 stood by these institutions when many sneered, are now seeing the 

 results of your loyalty, and your sons and your daughters who are 

 going to be educated there are going to do more for the agriculture 

 of Pennsylvania than has ever before been done. We have an in- 

 stitution up there which has not its duplicate anywhere else in the 

 world — the Institute of Animal Nutrition, where they measure the 

 true value of feed, and know what becomes of it in the animal econ- 

 omy. In order that that Institute may do proper work, it will need 

 $100,000 a year. It needs that now, and will need a great deal 

 more after awhile. You want to know why it needs such a large 

 amount of money? A very simple statement is all that is required 

 to show this. The apparatus for determining the value of food is 

 a large box into which an animal is put, where it is fed and watered 

 upon substances whose composition is definitely known. Accurate 

 records are made about every half minute, possibly every few sec- 

 onds, of what is taking place in there. In the course of a few days 

 an amount of data will have been secured that will take several men 

 several weeks to work out, and discover what the experiment 

 teaches. While this computation is going on another force of men 

 should start another series of experiments, and then another crew 



