No. 6. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 201 



very strong statement, but I believe it is true. I mean by this just 

 such work as is being done here in this State and in the various 

 other states, through the selection of the very best and most prac- 

 tical men, who have been working and solving these problems on 

 the various farms and are coming together annually and discussing 

 their success; in this way becoming farm missionaries, practically 

 reaching out into the field and giving their brother farmers and co- 

 workers a helping hand where they need it. 



As I have mentioned before, you have one of the most concrete 

 examples in this State that we have in America to-day in the great 

 work that has been accomplished by your fellow-worker, Mr. Detrich. 

 I am glad since I came in this hall that we are to be given an oppor- 

 tunity of going this afternoon to the place and there seeing for our- 

 selves the farm of 340 acres, which in less than a year has been con- 

 verted from a worn out and abandoned farm with all the elements 

 that went to make up the success of successful crop culture, worn 

 out by mismanagement, but now set upon a practical, definite basis 

 from a business point of view. This is simply the application of the 

 principles inculcated in this Institute, an application of missionary 

 work, by the missionaries who are reaching out and helping those 

 who need help more than any other class in this country. 



Of the 29,000,000 wage earners in this country, more than one- 

 third are directly engaged in agricultural pursuits; in other words 

 over 11,000,000 of wage earners in this country are engaged in agri- 

 culture and agricultural pursuits. That means that we have this 

 great mass and great class of people who, as our friend Mr. Dye says, 

 represent the very foundation of all our success and material wealth. 

 This class of people are now beginning to be reached, as it were, by 

 the Farmers' Institute Department; by the College Experiment Sta- 

 tion; by the Grange, and by the work done by the Department of 

 Agriculture of the National Government; and better and still better, 

 I may say, that the individual in his home is becoming a teacher of 

 principles. He is beginning to look, deeper and deeper into these 

 problems. He is beginning to unravel these intricate matters in 

 his own home circle. 



It was my pleasure recently to spend an evening with one of your 

 most successful farmers injthis State, and the whole drift of the con- 

 versation that evening was upon problems that confront the in- 

 dividual on his farm, and how he has successfully worked them out 

 and succeeded. And I want to say to you that the youngsters in that 

 family were as much interested as could possibly have been a mis- 

 cellaneous outside audience, because these young men and young 

 women in that family and by that fireside, realize as they never 

 realized before, that the tendency of the times is back to the land; 

 and when you get into great congested cities like Philadelphia and 

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