RErORT OF THE SECRETARY. 11 



The town does not need the retired farmer, while the farm needs 

 his experience and his capitah A retired farmer is capital going to 

 waste. 



Taking care of the soil is the fii-st consideration in the conservation 

 of onr resources. 



Denmark buys our mill feeds and sells $40,000,000 of dairy prod- 

 ucts to Great Britain. 



Bookkeeping will soon be as common on the farm as in the fac- 

 tory. It is just as important for a farmer to know what it has cost 

 to produce a given crop as for the manufacturer to know the cost 

 of making the article he sells. 



CROP RESULTS. 



MOST PRODUCTIVE OF ALL YEARS. 

 earth's greatest dividend. 



Most productive of all agricultural years in this country has been 

 1912. The earth has produced its greatest annual dividend. The 

 sun and the rain and the fertility of the soil heeded not the human 

 controversies, but kept on working in cooperation with the farmers' 

 efforts to utilize them. The reward is a high general level of produc- 

 tion. The man behind the plow has filled the Nation's larder, 

 crammed the storehouses, and will send liberal supplies to foreign 

 countries. 



The prices at the farm are generally profitable, and w^ill continue 

 the prosperity that farmers huxe enjoyed in recent years. In spite of 

 the lower total value of animals sold and slaughtered, the total crop 

 value is so far above that of 1911, and of any preceding year, that 

 the total production of farm wealth is the highest yet reached by 

 half a billion dollars. 



Based on the census items of wealth production on farms, the 

 grand total for 1912 is estimated to be $9,532,000,000. This unthink- 

 able amount of wealth has been contributed to the Nation in one year 

 by the soil and by the farmers' live stock. It is more than twice the 

 value of the wealth produced on farms in 1899, according to the 

 census, and it is about one-eighth more than the wealth produced 

 in 1909. 



During the last IG years the farmer has steadily increased his 

 wealth production year by year, with the exception of 1911, when 

 the value declined from that of the preceding year. If the wealth 



