42 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



selves. It is a matter of intensity. It is a matter of making our farms 

 in this country do what the farms of Europe are doing. This is a prob- 

 lem for the present generation, and the present generation is solving it 

 by means of experiment stations all over the country* and by develop- 

 ment of the American farm, not less in Nebraska than elsewhere. The 

 present generation is solving it by means of the experiment station work 

 and by scientific farms, by means of farmers' institutes, and many other 

 forms of organized effort. 



There is another problem which you will please consider with me 

 for a moment or two, a problem for the future to sol\e. It is a fact that 

 you can gain, if you are not already in the possession of it, and trust 

 some of you are^ — by looking into the reports that are printed by the 

 United States Government, of the commerce of the country, that agri- 

 cultural, horticultural, and food stuffs, as exports of this country, have 

 become a minor factor. One of the great problems of the future is the 

 development of the food production at a rate corresponding to the in- 

 crease in population of the country. That this development has not been 

 going on as the population has increased is proved by the authority I have 

 mentioned. Other countries in the world have become convinced that it 

 pays to educate for the thing they are trying to do as a nation. The 

 United States has not as a country been developing that idea thus far. 

 We are not educating for the thing that we are trying to do as a nation. 

 Let us take Germany as an example. It is a sad commentary upon our 

 American pride when we point to the commerce of Germany in compari- 

 son with our own. We are a country of about three million square miles. 

 The whole empire of Germany could be placed in the state of Texas, and 

 yet there would be room enough to put the great state of Illinois there 

 beside it. Germany has a population of sixty million, in comparison with 

 our one hundred million. Yet Germany in twenty years has beat us in 

 foreign commerce one-half billion dollars. Those who have been there 

 audi have made a study of this thing find that the reason Germany has 

 done that is because their school system has' developed as tlieir indus- 

 tries have developed. She has educated her young people, her rising gen- 

 eration, for the thing she expects to do as a nation. If you go to the city 

 of Munich with a population of 600,000, a city like St. Louis or Baltimore, 

 you will find thirty-eight different kinds of trade schools established. 

 There are trade schools not only for doctors, lawyers, and professional 

 men, but schools also for the artisan and mechanic, schools for carpen- 

 ters, machinists, salesmen, painters, paperhangers, and even street-sweep- 

 ers. They educate for the thing they expect to do as a nation. 



Let me take you for a moment to one of the little towns in France. 

 I have a friend up in north Nebraska who is a scientific breeder of horses. 

 This gentleman was called to Belgium a few years ago to consult with 

 the Belgian government concerning some problems in horse raising. 

 While there he visited a friend of his on his small French farm. The 

 family consisted of five members, and the only resource of the home was 

 a house and a seven-acre plot of Impoverished (?) French soil, and do 

 you know that home Is a home of affluence and luxury? This lumily Qt 



