No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. S 



scarcity of farm hands. Wages for farm labor in many communi- 

 ties, have increased 50 per cent, during- the last decade, and yet 

 the supply is nowhere near equal to the demand. This condition 

 results largely from the rapid development of other industries. 

 There was never a time in the history of the Commonwealth, when 

 our people were making so determined a push for the rapid accumu- 

 lation of wealth, as is being made at the present. The mineral 

 resources of the State are being abnormally developed. Our great 

 deposits of coal and iron are being taken from Nature's storehouse 

 more rapidly than is necessary to meet the wants of the people, 

 and instead of that economy, that philanthropic discretion would 

 dictate, a degree of unnecessary consumption amounting to waste 

 is encouraged. To move these mineral deposits and place them in 

 proper form for market, as well as to prepare the means of trans 

 porting them to the places where the} T ma}' be sold, requires the 

 employment of more labor than has ever been found necessary in 

 any period of the past. The search for cheap labor has taken the 

 capitalists of the country into Southern Europe, and from countries 

 where people are accustomed to live much more cheaply than is 

 possible for our own people, immigrants are being brought to this 

 country by multiplied thousands. For these people, homes of some 

 kind, however rude and simple, must be provided, and so our forests 

 are being cut down, and in many instances, timber that should be 

 permitted to grow, so as to meet the wants of the generation that 

 is coming after us, is being wasted by being turned to use before 

 its time. 



All this push and development has resulted in creating a greatly 

 increased demand for clerks.' salesmen, teamsters, foremen, etc.. 

 about public works, that has taken from the farms of the State 

 our native farm help, and for this reason the Pennsylvania farmer is 

 not in a position to secure his full share of the prosperity that the 

 country at large enjoys. 



HELPFUL, AGENCIES. 



State College and Experiment Station: Both the College and Ex- 

 periment Station did excellent work during the year. The College 

 has largely increased its facilities for conducting both its long and 

 short courses in agriculture, and with these increased facilities, has 

 come increased demand for a higher agricultural education. We 

 are living in a practical age. The tendency is to educate people 

 to do something rather than to know something, without connecting 

 the thought of knowledge with that of action, and our State Col- 

 lege is among the foremost institutions of our land in devoting at- 

 tention to the subjects, upon which her students, when they enter 

 upon active life, must depend for a living. 



Until recently, agriculture at the college, for want of proper- 

 equipment, could not occupy the prominent place that both the 

 Faculty and Board of Trustees desired that it should; but "the 

 day of small things" is past, and now with magnificent buildings 

 and splendid equipment, the College is prepared to do, and is doing, 

 a great work for the agriculture of the State. 



No less important aid than that coming from the College proper, 

 has been afforded by the Experiment Station. The importance of 

 experimentation as an aid to agriculture, has been recognized by 



