DAIRY ASSOCIATION. 347 



the history of the science of x\griculture, that we can not measure in 

 mere dollars, nor indeed by any gauge, the results of the Department's 

 labors. I find myself speaking and thinking of the broad field of the 

 Department's work and of the whole realm of farm papers, but what is 

 true of them is true in a measure of the special efforts of the Division 

 of Dairy Husbandry on the one hand and the disseminating agency of 

 the strictly dairy publications and dairy departments on the other. 



You begin to see, doubtless, the point I wish to make. That is, 

 notwithstanding the five millions appropriated by the Government for 

 the Department of Agriculture and in spite of the volumes of printed 

 matter sent out by that department, these treasures would in most cases 

 be lost in the mines of wealth, buried in the darksome caverns of of- 

 ficial and statistical reports, did not the busy editor pick and shovel with 

 the pen and — scissors, and dig out the nuggets, polish them and present 

 them in get-at-able shape, through the columns of the weekly visitor. 

 The press is forever searching for new thoughts. It is a digestor and 

 distributor. The influence of the pebble of wisdom dropped in the ocean 

 of truth, is carried to the utmost confines of earth by the widening, ever 

 widening waves of the public press. 



The same process of selection and dissemination is seen with refer- 

 ence to the work of the Agricultural colleges and the various experi- 

 ment stations. The Agricultural press thus aids in that University Ex- 

 tension work, which has lately received the attention of our best educa- 

 tors. If Mahomet can't go to the mountain, we must carry the moun- 

 tain to Mahomet. There is a growing appreciation of the value of self 

 education and the prevalence of so-called "correspondence schools" illus- 

 trates the tendency. We can not do without the colleges — the centers 

 of learning where in laboratory and field, and by the midnight oil are 

 worked out the problems of life, but no university should be satisfied 

 with the little family of foundlings for whom she stands as foster moth- 

 er, when by spreading her wings she can brood under her motherly 

 breast the whole race. The white wings of Alma Mater are the flut- 

 tering speeding pages of the press, flying from one end of this great 

 continent to the other, extending the good work, helping those who may, 

 to go to the founts of learning and drink direct full draughts from the 

 Pierian spring, and for those who may not, conveying thence the cup 

 for their refreshment and inspiration. What a vast irrigating system 

 it is. 



The coincidence of our meeting, not only in the college town of 

 the great commonwealth of Missouri, but in this beautiful and ap- 

 propriate building and under the quasi-protection of the University 

 authorities, is mv excuse for dwelling upon this phase of my subject, 



