NliS OF Till-: TENTH A.WTAI. HHETLMi liF W. \MM}& 



mmm of farjiers' LNSTniiE workers. 



Afternoon Session. Tin rsdav, November 9, 1905. 



The association was called to order at 2 o'clock \>. in., in the National Hotel, 

 Washington, D. C, the vicc-jircsidcnt of the association, K. A. Burnett, of Nebraska, 

 in the chair. 



The .Secretary of Agriculture, Hon. James Wilson, was introduced and delivered 

 an addre.ss of welcome as follows: 



ADDRESS OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. 



L.4i)iEs .\Ni) ( iKxri.EMEN: 1 1 is a ]ilea.<ant duty and a high jirivilege to come over 

 here and meet you who are engaged in this great educational work, coming from many 

 States and Territories of the I'nion, and also our brethren from Canada. 



The growth of agricultural education in our day has become very marked, and has 

 exceeded everything that jireceded it throughout all the ages of education among 

 mankind. In old times, when I was a boy, I rcmeudjer going to the old-fashionecL 

 farmers' club that probably is antecedent to most of the efforts that are being made 

 to help the man who works in the field with liis coat off, and there is the most won- 

 derful difference between what was said and done in those old-fashioned farmers' 

 meetings and what is being done now in our great educational a.s.sociations along 

 these lines. We have not very much in our libraries pertaining to the past. You 

 take the reports of the Department of Agriculture when it originated, away Vjack in 

 the Patent Office, and while they are to some extent instructive, and to some extent 

 entertaining, yet they are exceedingly different from anything we have now, and if 

 you look over the rejiorts of the agricultural societies of our States in early days, and 

 of the Old World, you will be surprised again at the simplicity of the subjects dis- 

 cussed, and to see how very little that seemed to be the result of re.search is found 

 in that old literature. 



It is very different now. AVe are organized along a good many lines, all of which 

 it is not necessary to enumerate, the work in which is for the benefit of grown up 

 farmers, adult people, farmers who have not time to go to school. Through progres- 

 sive agriculture to-day you do something for them that is not done as well in any 

 other way. I find that our States and Territories are nearly all organized. There are 

 farmers' institutes found everywhere in the land now, and the farmers' institute lec- 

 turer goes as a missionary from the fountain head of agricultural information, and 

 discusses matters that pertain to everyday life on the farm, in the field, in the dairy, 

 and in the feed yard, and wherever science is important in making the farm more 

 valuable. This was not done in the old days for the reason that in the old days there 

 was no research. That is where the difficulty was. Now we have several lines of 

 research in most of the countries in the world. There is no royal road blocked out 

 with regard to the education of the farmer along those lines, but different countries 

 are going in different directions in this regard. Away back in 1862, when agricul- 

 tural colleges were endowed in the United States by act of Congress, there was a new- 

 departure taken as regards the education of very nearly one-half of the people. 

 Forty-two per cent of the people in the old United States lived by farming — of all 

 the jjeople now under the American flag about 50 per cent live ])y farming — and 

 until late years, until within a time well remembered by all of us here, there had 



(15) 



