16 



]>eeri no svsteniatk- effort made to educate that half of our people in economic lessons, 

 or to prepare them for makinji the day'H work <ro furtlier, or for making the acre 

 yield more. That is the date to which we look back as the be-rinning of a new era 

 "f()r the American farmer. Some of the States in the Union had organized before that 

 time, l)ut a great impetus was given then, and the measure of success we have had 

 has depended entirelv on the march of education, on the men in those several insti- 

 tutions in our States and Territories to do this work. We have had to be patient 

 until our teachers became educated— educated themselves; until the colleges had 

 time to work and produce a class of men who could give instruction along these 

 lines, as in contradistinction to instruction along literary lines very rapid progress is 

 being made now. 



The Department of Agriculture, another educational institution, is here now in 

 obedience to the demands of the waiting farmers of the United States. The old 

 Grange was organized for purposes pertaining to social life, and what pertains to the 

 best interests of the farmer all along the line, and brought a powerful influence to 

 bear upon American farm society. Eight years ago, I remember, when I came down 

 here to associate mvself with the gentlemen in the Department of Agriculture who 

 had charge of this work, I came with the full intention of doing all in my power to 

 help strengthen the State organizations to make the Department of Agriculture use- 

 ful to the State organizations— to make the Department of Agriculture subservient to 

 the best interests "' -rch and education within the several States and Territories 

 of the Union; but . ''ed at that time what was well known to others, but was 



comparatively new to me, l. at the Department of Agriculture could not be developed 

 and enlarged"and strengthened l)y applying to the educational institutions of the 

 land for men educated to do its work and carry on its researches. And so we have 

 found it necessary to train men in the Department, and to that end between five 

 hundred and six hundred young men, mostly graduates of colleges— preferably 

 of agricultural colleges, when we can find them— have lieen brought into the 

 Department and given facilities for instruction along post-graduate lines, and put 

 in small parties under our trained scientists in order that they may become val- 

 uable in carrying on our work. That i)olicy has been carried out in regard to all 

 the bureaus of the Department. Take one of the oldest— the Weather Bureau. No 

 institution in the land was paying any attention in those days to the education of 

 any number of the American youth along meteorological lines. It became evident 

 to us in the Department that we must have some beginnings made witli the young 

 people to train them along those lines if we ever expectetl to increase our knowledge 

 of meteorologv to the point of making it an exact science, and so we have instructed 

 our observers, located in the neighborhood of State institutions, universities, and 

 independent colleges to give lectures to students; and now we have twenty men in 

 the great institutions of the country lecturing to students along those lines. So that 

 we have hopes of having scholars in the land in future along those lines. Thus we 

 have encouraged education along the several lines of the work we carry on in our 

 Department. This, however, is familiar to you gentlemen, but it is illustrative of 

 the necessity for education along agricMltural" lines. In many directions there is no 

 calling upon earth that reciuires a ra-.n to be so well educated as that of agriculture. 

 We have begun a new work in bur day. None of the institutions of the country 

 formerly paid any attention to the soil of the country. If there was one which did 

 I do not know where it was. I may have heard of it, but I do not remember where 

 it was. We have organized a bureau now to study the soils of the country, that is 

 maintained to obtain as great a result as possible for the benefit of the people who 

 till the soils, to learn what the soils will do best, and in what direction they can be 

 most helpful to the tillers of the soil, and to find out what crops will grow best on 

 the several soils; and we are doing that all over the United States. In short, 

 wherever the farmer needs help we endeavor to train somel)ody to help that man, if 

 we have not anvbodv trained now. That man's cry to us for help is never forgotten. 

 If we have nobodv tit to hell) him out to-day, then it is high time we were getting 

 somebody prepared to help him; ami so we are working along those lines in the 

 West and the North and East and the South. If the farmer needs helj), the policy 

 of the Department is to help him, and to give the law-making power, the power that 

 makes appropriation, no peace until he gets it. 



I might say a word of our visiting Inethren from Canada as an illustration ot the 

 extent'^to which our interests and theirs are bound up together. I was thinking 

 about the well-l^eing of our people along the northern tier of States sometime ago, 

 and I found thev were growing a crop of wheat once in every two years, and leaving 

 the land fallow lialf the time; and the croj) once in two years was getting less and 

 less. It occurred to nie, "What can we do to hel]) those people to do better than 

 that?" People in Europe did something of that kind a century ago, but no intelli- 

 gent farmer there thinks of summer fallowing nowadays. It occurred to us that it 



