264 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



the farm will not allow the purchase of modern power machinery. 

 But "necessity is the mother of invention," and Germany turned 

 science to the use of the peasant. She increased her yield of 

 wheat 48 per cent in two decades while we increased ours less 

 than 6 per cent in the same length of time; she also increased her 

 yield of barley by 51.8 per cent while we made a gain of only 

 8.8 per cent, and that of potatoes by^ 61.6 per cent while our 

 increase was only 32.6 per cent. But we are learning. Our 

 vast, unplowed domain and cheap land has kept us from turning 

 to intensive farming and we have wasted much of our natural 

 resource, but necessity is driving us to consider these things 

 and education is convincing us of the value of them. The 

 farmers of Wisconsin are saving $12,000,000 annually by spray- 

 ing their fruit. A visit over to the Agricultural College is worth 

 many talks upon this subject, so we will not tarry upon it. One 

 of the greatest things to be done in Missouri is to learn to grow 

 alfalfa. There are thousands of acres that are capable of making 

 from $50 to $100 per acre each year with it, but we seem to lack 

 patience and the willingness to make the temporary risk it 

 requires. 



Our next topic is one in which, above all others, Missourians 

 are, and by necessity ought to be, most interested. It is that 

 of good roads. The story is told of a community not far from 

 Columbia where a small tax levy for good roads was being voted 

 upon. The election day was in the early spring and the roads 

 deep with mud. In the late afternoon three men rode in on the 

 trucks of a wagon with four mules hitched to it and pulling with 

 all their strength even then to get through. Some one offered 

 to wager there were three votes for the proposition, but to his 

 surprise they had pulled in in that manner in order to get to vote 

 against ever having such conditions changed. The road drag and 

 grader will make any road fairly good the year around. We waste 

 most of our road money in puttering up the roads instead of 

 putting in permanent improvements. I cycled in several of the 

 old countries and found one of their greatest assets to be in their 

 good roads. It put every man in easy touch with his market. 

 Again, the spirit of co-operation is the first requirement and a 

 willingness to pay taxes for the common good. What we need 

 is not less taxation but better use of what we do pay and then a 

 a larger vision of what would come to us all through more public 

 taxation of the right kind. 



