REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. 



Washington, D. C, November 15^ 1918. 



Sir : The part the millions of men, women, boys, and girls on the 

 farms and the organized agricultural agencies assisting them, includ- 

 ing the Federal Department of Agriculture, the State colleges and 

 departments of agriculture, and farmers' organizations, played dur- 

 ing the war in sustaining this Nation and those with which we are 

 associated is striking but altogether too little known and appre- 

 ciated. On them rested the responsibility for maintaining and in- 

 creasing food production and for assisting in securing fuller con- 

 servation of food and feed stuffs. The satisfactory execution of their 

 task was of supreme importance and difficulty. 



The proper utilization of available foods is one thing ; the increase 

 of production along economic lines is quite a different thing. It is 

 prerequisite and fundamental. It is one thing to ask a man to save ; 

 it is another to ask him, confronted as he is by the chances of the 

 market and the risk of loss from disease, flood, and drouth, to put his 

 labor and capital into the production of food, feeds, and the raw 

 material for clothing. 



The work of the agricultural agencies is not much in the public eye. 

 There is little of the dramatic about it. The millions of people 

 in the rural districts are directly affected by it and are in more or 

 less intimate touch with it, but to the great urban population it is 

 comparatively unknown. Usually people in cities devote very little 

 thought to the rural districts ; and many of them fortunately, in nor- 

 mal times, have to concern themselves little about the food supply 

 and its sources. The daily press occupies itself largely with the 

 news of the hour, and the magazines have their attention centered 

 chiefly on other activities. Consequently, the people in large centers 

 have slight opportunity to acquaint themselves with rural problems 

 and agencies. Although the Nation has, in its Federal Department 

 and the State colleges and departments, agricultural agencies for the 



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