396 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Oflf. Doc. 



versant as you are with the several neighborhoods of the State, that 

 we have actually done something in that direction and we shall 

 do more as the years go by. We have also had passed and put into 

 operation a new law, in a way, re-organizing the Department of 

 Agriculture here at the Capitol, and I have the very great satis- 

 faction of my soul to say that we have put at the head of that de- 

 partment a most capable, a most conscientious, and splendid man, 

 Mr. Patton, (applause) who is not only interested in everything that 

 makes for better farm conditions in your Commonwealth, but who 

 has the judgment, the insight, the executive capacity to help you in 

 definite ways to that end. 



Now, further than that, there is a matter which I think none of 

 you have as yet sensed. We have put in operation here in Penn- 

 sylvania a Workmen's Compensation Law, which, by a special act 

 of Assembly, excludes — I mean, a child labor law — which excludes 

 farm labor and domestic service from its provisions just as the Work- 

 men's Compensation Law does. I wonder if you have thought what 

 that means, whether you have analyzed the far-reaching purpose 

 bedded deep in that child labor provision? It is a definite attempt 

 on the part of the Executive and his friends and the friends of the 

 childhood of the State to make it easy for boys to stay on the farm 

 and in the home, where they ought to be, instead of flocking to the 

 industries at a premature age to try to earn a small pittance which 

 fixes them as cheap toilers all their lives in our villages and manu- 

 fatcuring centers. You will know more of that as the years go by 

 and see the wisdom in the operation of that law. 



Now I am interested also in another phase of this problem which 

 your Board of Agriculture and your Commissioner of Agriculture 

 will be working out with your co-operation and help, I trust, during 

 the coming year. It is not enough to grow your crops, we have got 

 to see that these crops find a ready and a good market and th« 

 marketing facilities for the farm crops of Pennsylvania are so very 

 much below what they ought to be, that every man in this State 

 who is interested in it's welfare ought to give serious support to a 

 movement that will increase the marketing conditions and facilities 

 of Pennsylvania. (Applause.) We ought to make a complete sur- 

 vey of our soil and advise our people in a definite way as to the 

 method of treating it and caring for it and securing from it its 

 maximum return for the efforts put upon it. 



There is another matter in which I am deeply interested. I believe 

 that this Department of Agriculture should have, and I think in 

 the near future it will have, an expert man or woman who will be 

 able to go to a farmer who sends for him just with a postal card, 

 and, without cost to the farmer, advise him upon everything in which 

 he is concerned for the betterment of his family and his property 

 in Pennsylvania. 



Now, having in mind at least three things in that which have all 

 come to my attention because of my study of the State in recent 

 years, first of all, to see to it that the drainage from our barns does 

 not reach the source of water that our families consume. Now, that 

 may seem a small matter to you, and yet there are farms in thia 

 State today whose buildings are so located that the menace from 

 typhoid fever is an increasing one by reason of the improper location 



