454 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



day of individual competitiou. The day of the combiuation has 

 come to stay, but it will uot be the day of unrestrained combiuation. 

 We should be prepared to renounce this individuality, and not to 

 commence the attempt to restrain this natural tendency, which, 

 thoroughly controlled, will bring about beneficial results. What 

 must be done is what our President and some of his advisers, have 

 been trying for several years to do — with partial success — to so 

 control these combinations that they will uot only make a few suc- 

 cessful promoters rich bej'ond the dreams of avarice, but be success- 

 fully distributed among all th*e members of the community whose co- 

 operation is necessary to produce the results. 



Now, coming again to my text, studying these principles, and 

 teaching railway, banking, and other forms of them in the Univer- 

 sity of Chicago, and, of course, Economics in Agriculture, led me to 

 see the relation between agriculture and other interests, and to 

 see the difference in it. The farmer works as an individual, instead 

 of having the benefits of combination, as do the railroads, the fac- 

 tories, the bankers, who see more clearly the necessity of this. In 

 the whole scheme of things the farmer has the least protection. 

 The land is the foundation on which all the great superstructure 

 that has been built up in America rests. And because the natural 

 conditions were so favorable to agriculture, and our resources so 

 rich, it has been possible for the farmer to produce easily under con- 

 ditions that would have driven the business man into combination 

 long ago. He has been able to produce under the old individual 

 system; although the daily tendency has been toward combination 

 instead of competition, the farmer has been allowed to do as he 

 pleased, and continue the system of individual competition. They 

 only work together to serve their own interests. Our neighbor over 

 here breeds Chester Whites, and is successful; this makes his neigh- 

 bor a little jealous, and, in order to be looked upon as a leader, he 

 takes to breeding Berkshires. What is the result? People who 

 come in from the outside get in some instances Chester Whites, 

 while others get Berkshires; the same thing holds true in cattle, 

 and in horses. Now, when a man wants to buy Jersey cattle, or 

 horses of a certain kind, or anything of a particular breed, where 

 does he go? He goes into the neighborhood where these things are 

 bred, rather than to some individual breeder. This is well illus- 

 trated in Wisconsin, where through the influence of the Agricultural 

 College and "Hoard's Dairyman," the farmers have been breeding 

 a particular strain for two or three generations. You will find men 

 there who have bred Holsteins, or Chester Whites, or Jerseys, or 

 Percherons, or Belgians, for two or three generations, and they are 

 successful; people know thej^ will get what they want when they 

 go into those neighborhoods where they have been bred. 



The great thing about Agricultural Colleges is the co-operation and 

 co-ordination of the existing agricultural forces, and that is our 

 plan in forming the Guild — to use co-operation and co-ordina- 

 tion of the forces already existing. Now, what docs the 

 University furnish; what does the farm owner furnish, and 

 what does the student furnish? It is the co-operation and 

 co-ordination of these three forces, and, I might add a 

 fourth, which is more important than any of them, and that 

 is the Agricultural Colleges, the men who are leading the way to 



