328 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



year around. The solid and liquid manure from the hog pens is drawn 

 into a concrete tank and mixed with an absorbent. All the droppings 

 from the poultry houses are carefully preserved. Mr. Stout was, I 

 believe, one of the first, if not the first man, in his section to spread 

 the manure on his fields at once, instead of throwing it out into a pit 

 or barnyard, where it would again have to be handled a second time 

 in loading. It was due to these saving methods, that Mr. Stout was 

 able to transform a wornout farm into a productive one; to increase 

 the yields of his fields from one-half ton to three (3) tons of hay 

 per acre, and his yield of wheat from nothing to twenty (20) to 

 twenty-five (25) bushels, his oats to twenty-three (23) bushels, corn, 

 seventy (70) bushels and potatoes to two hundred and twenty-five 

 (225) bushels per acre, and these on fields that, in his first year, 

 the crops were practically a failure. Another thing he did was to 

 lay five (5) miles of stone and tile drains in marshy fields; the re- 

 sult is that he is cutting three (3) tons of hay per acre, where before 

 nothing would grow but swamp plants and grasses. Here is a 

 farmer who works with his head as well as his hands, a practical 

 scientific farmer, as it were. Without the reading and studying of 

 scientific works, government bulletins and farm journals, he could 

 not have accomplished these results, but would have given up in 

 despair. 



The government, Federal and State, are doing more for the farm- 

 ers than for any other class of citizens. By an expenditure of a 

 few cents for postal cards, the Department of Agriculture will, with- 

 out further expense, send to any farmer in the country a practically 

 complete library on agriculture and cognate subjects for the ask- 

 ing. The time has gone by, when the farmer is looked down upon, 

 if he ever really was, for the public, as it becomes more highly edu- 

 cated, will appreciate how great a factor the farmer is in our lives. 

 Without farmers, famine would be upon us. The farmer of to-mor- 

 row must know much about science if he would succeed. Our fields 

 have been robbed of much of their fertility and this must be restored 

 if this nation is to survive. Many farms, now worn out and aband- 

 oned, must be restored, or we will be unable to feed the rapidly in- 

 creasing population of non-producers. The enormous exports of 

 grain and of livestock to foreign lands will cost this country dear 

 in the end, for, as that great Agriculturist Chemist, Justus von Lie- 

 big, has observed: "The manure produced in the course of farming 

 is not sufficient to maintain, permanently, the fertility of a farm; 

 it lacks the constituents which are annually sold in the shape of 

 grain, hay, milk and live stock." A few days ago, a dispatch ap- 

 peared in the ''public press," setting forth that 40.000 horses had 

 been sold in the West for exportation abroad. That single ship- 

 ment of horses will cause a loss of over .|1,000,(J00 to us in the value 

 of the manure they would have produced during the present year, 

 had they remained in this country. 



I have observed here, tliat T have served as one of your Consult- 

 ing Specialists without financial remuneration, and willingly, for 

 the delightful associations with you all and the warm and lasting 

 friendships I have contracted among you, pay me infinitely more 

 than any financial reward, and should the staff of Specialists be 

 abolished, my only regret will be in the breaking off of our pleasant 

 official relations. 



