Q8 Missouri Agricultural Ecport. 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME ON BEHALF OF COLLEGE OF 



AGRICULTURE. 



(F. B. Mumfoid, Dean.) 



You have listened to words of welcome by Secretary Ellis of the 

 Board of Agriculture; you have listened to words of welcome on behalf 

 of the president of the University; and it is now my pleasure to wel- 

 come you to these meetings and to the Agricultural College on behalf 

 of the Agricultural College. There never has been a time in the his- 

 tory of the world, in any country, when so much attention has been paid 

 to any occupation as there is being paid at the present time to the 

 occupation of farming in the United States. Our government spends 

 more money perhaps than that of any other country in the civilized 

 world for solving the problems connected Avith the vocation of agri- 

 culture. 



Railroad presidents and various organizations have come to feel 

 that tlie prosperity of agriculture and of farmers is of more importance 

 ^to them in their business than is the prosperity of any other class of 

 people. There is no philanthropy in this pn the part of the railroads. 

 It is an economic proposition. Then, there is scarcely a man in the 

 United States that in the past few years has not come to feel that the 

 man who produces the food supplies is .more and more an important 

 factor in the everyday life of every citizen. We hear on every hand the 

 statement that the high cost of living is now perhaps one of the most 

 important factors to be taken into account in the future development 

 of our national life. 



In the past fifty years the farmer has been little regarded. There 

 lias been a limitless extent of land and we as farmers have been en- 

 gaged in a policy of ruinous competition with one another which has 

 made it very easy for those who are buying the food supplies produced 

 hy the farmer to secure them. But for the first time in our history 

 the demand for food supplies has caught up with the supply. In the 

 very near future there will be no large exports from this country. The 

 problem that is confronting the American nation today, as well as the 

 farmer, is how to provide food enough for our own people ; and this is 

 a problem that is not of interest solely to you and me, interested as 

 we are in agriculture and in its production, but it is a question of funda- 

 inental importance to every man, woman and child in America. 



It is my purpose this morning to call attention to some of the 

 possible solutions that have been suggested to meet this condition. This 

 vcondition is the result largely of a very rapid increase in population 



