624 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



As this is a meeting in the interests of agriculture, it is necessary 

 that I should direct my attention to that greatest of all industries 

 — agriculture and its relation to other industries and the factors 

 bearing upon the agricultural class. 



In our trade with the world, if we removed the agricultural pro- 

 ducts from our exports we would owe over $56,000,000, but including 

 them the world owes up the enormous sum of $367,000,000, or in 

 other words, we supplied ourselves and then exported $422,000,000 

 worth of products and yet it engages the attention of only three- 

 eighths of our population. Such is the great importance of agri- 

 culture to our people. It is the farmer that balances the books 

 with the outside world and steadily brings the wealth of other na 

 tions to our shores. To him we must look for the industrial and 

 commercial stability of our nation. 



The other industries depends for their welfare upon a store of 

 wealth laid up by an all-wise Creator for the benefit of man, and 

 when this store is exhausted they are compelled to move to new 

 places. Agriculture depends, it is true, upon fertility laid up during 

 countless centuries, but if worked judiciously it actually gains in- 

 stead of becoming exhausted in a few short years. Therefore, it 

 is the most stable industry engaged in by mankind. 



The greatest problem of the American farmer to-day is, how to 

 produce the greatest amount at the least cost or, as that old Latin 

 maxim runs, "Maximo in mummo." The railroad superintendent 

 knows just to what fraction of a cent it costs to haul freight, while 

 the manufacturer knows the cost of every part that enters into his 

 product. Labor-saving machinery, it is computed, saved the Ameri 

 can farmer the vast sum of .$1,700,000,000 during the past harvest, 

 and only by its use are we able to compete with the world at all. 

 But even beyond this is the greatest problem of all, — to know how. 

 Recently a very complicated machine in a large factory ceased to do 

 its work properly, the efforts of local talent could not repair it, and 

 an expert was sent for, and in a few minutes after he arrived he 

 had the machine in working order. He charged $50.50, and when 

 asked why he charged the 50 cents, replied, that "it was for actual 

 work done, while the $50 was for knowing how." Some may sav 

 that the public lands are almost all taken and the increase in acreage 

 will soon cease. This is true, but the limit of production is not 

 reached; 239 bushels of shelled corn, 68 bushels of wheat, 800 

 bushels of potatoes on an acre and 32 heads of cattle on 15 acres 

 are certified possibilities, yet the average is not more than one- 

 sixth of these figures. It seems we are only at the beginning of 

 agricultural possibilities. 



The farmers' institutes have been established over the greater 

 part of the Union and other kindred institutions, as the Experiment 

 Station, the agricultural colleges, and the agricultural press, to 

 uplift and teach them the factors with which they have to deal 

 and also to give them a knowledge of the outside world. There 

 are many farmers to-day that are like what Edward Markham has 

 fitly described in his poem, "The Man with the Hoe," in that much 

 criticised line, "And they content just to be." They make no effort 

 toward advancement. They are content to pass through the world 

 in the easiest possible manner. While there are others that are 

 like what John Milton feared when he wrote his sonnet on his 



