Farmers' Week in Agricultural College. 93 



experience comes from doing the work ourselves every day in the field, 

 orchard or garden. To my mind, no book nor paper can l)c written on 

 farming that will answer for all soils and sections in all seasons. No 

 two sections, soils nor seasons are alike. The dry years and dry spells 

 will return after the wet seasons. This has been true through all ages 

 and will be in the future. The longer you and I stay on the farms which 

 we call our homes tlie better for the farm and future generations. I 

 know by experience that plenty of manure worked into soil and the 

 most complete system of cultivation make an almost complete protec- 

 tion against ordinary drought. I will admit the seasons have much to 

 do in the making of all our crops, but in some cases the farmer has 

 certain control over elements such as water, air and heat. Of late years 

 w^e are beginning to realize that if the soil is cultivated carefully and 

 intensively it will hold water within itself and carries a storage reservoir 

 underneath the growing plants. 



After a heavy rain the atmosphere will drink up the moisture from 

 the soil unless we prevent it by the means that we call a soil blanket or 

 mulch. That is true also in the irrigated region. . The successful 

 irrigator believes in cultivation, and will get along with less water and 

 often better results. I do believe the last ten years the wet seasons have 

 done more harm to the average farmer's cornfield than the drought. 

 The dry years are always the most i^rofitable ones for the small farmer ; 

 for the large farmer, the most disastrous ones. No one need to think 

 tliat the profit comes from the land in a dry season to the cultivator 

 without steady work. No owner of land, unless others require it to 

 live upon, can make money by neglecting it. The cultivator and the hoe 

 in the hand of a scientific farmer will bring as good and better results 

 in providing moisture for the growing plants as can be had from a ditch 

 in the hand of an ignorant farmer. Not every one will succeed in farm- 

 ing if taken up from a labor side. He ought to know the whys and 

 wherefores, the causes and effects. There is no use in blaming people 

 for not leaving the cities to go to the farms: 1st, some of them don't 

 know enough to go ; 2nd, they don't know enough to make a living if they 

 did go; 3rd, some of them don't know enough to enjoy it; 4th, many of 

 them have not the capital. We must teach them first. Where children 

 are taught what to do with the earth and how to do it, it is worth whole 

 shelves of books. 



To my mind, there is no scarcity of land to feed the nation and its 

 people, even at the wasteful rate. The saying that there are too many 

 mouths to be fed by the w^orld's supply is the kind of gospel spread 

 by the speculator and the monopolist. The yielding capacity of our land 



