No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 465 



could uot distinguish betweeu uiralia and clover, between a jack and 

 a giraffe. Yet they presume to trade on the credulity of farmers, as- 

 suming an attitude of friendship for benighted ruralists. 



Even highly perfumed town dudes wearing creased pants, looking 

 through their binoculars have regard for the farmer; treating former 

 mud-sills and cold hoppers with a show of respect, because they hope 

 by passing a few years in some institution where agriculture is taught 

 to gain positions as county agents or professors of some sort and on 

 the pay roll of a tState. After passing through the corridors of some 

 college from room to room listening to lectures, in a short time they 

 emerge as from a cocoon, full-fledged agents of "agentesses" to be 

 quartered on the community. 



Keal farmers are getting tired of being chastised, harangued, 

 scolded, ofl'ered free advice and encouraged to rob the soil in order 

 to produce more and cheaper butter, eggs and other products, costing 

 more than they bring in the market. Having attained such a degree 

 of efficiency with "greatest economy," it is not necessary to bear 

 the burden of increasing taxation to maintain an army of self-con- 

 stituted guardians of agriculture in this country. Therefore, they 

 should be provided with picks and shovels, crowbars and overalls to 

 demonstrate the power of the fulcrum in prying out rocks and the 

 proper angle to use tools with the least waste of energy and the 

 greatest efficiency on the roads. Our new dependencies, Alaska, Cuba, 

 Porto Kico, the Philippines, need scientific advice where numbers 

 might be assigned and some to China, India and Persia where the 

 inhabitants frequently perish of starvation. Using the phrase 

 "greatest efficiency and economy," may be considered as a joke in 

 our laws, likely introduced by some humorous member of the Legis- 

 lature from Philadelphia or Pittsburg to catch the unwary ruralists 

 with a few meaningless words regarded as a "scrap of paper." 



Farmers can get many things they don't want or dsk for but re- 

 duced expenses, revision of our tax laws, the initiative, the referen- 

 dum and recall are treated with contempt. There are throughout the 

 country a class of persons manifesting uncommon interest in the 

 farmers business, constantly prodding them on to raise larger crops 

 when it is a well known fact that maximum crops are as a rule not 

 remunerative. As an illustration : Take fifty bushels of wheat at one 

 dollar per bushel, is worth more than a hundred bushels at fifty cents 

 per bushel. Each sixty pounds of grain removes twenty cents worth 

 of fertility at normal prices for fertilizers while the difference in 

 value is more than made up in the extra cost of harvesting, thresh- 

 ing and marketing. At prevailing prices for fertilizers with potash 

 at $400 per ton, nitrate and phosphorus 40% higher, the fertility loss 

 is vastly greater. 



Since the passage of the Act there is money in view and more 

 in prospect for extension work which creates rivalry between Boards 

 of Agriculture and Departments and Experiment Stations, each 

 striving to secure a share for good, round salaries to place rural up- 

 lifters in the field having more regard for the dollars than for the 

 farmers' prosperity. It appears as if farmers were regarded as 

 public servants not engaged in private business, and w^ere expected 

 to dig out of the soil the support of all others many of whom 

 "do not labor, nor do they spin" but live as parasites upon agriculture 



30—6—1915 



