Corn Growers' Association. 197 



in the past, when the United States will be compared not with 

 one country of Europe, but in its resources, in its wealth, in its 

 agricultural productions, it will be comparable only with the com- 

 bined strength of all the European countries — it will be com- 

 parable only with Europe itself; and the State of Missouri, with 

 its 59,000 square miles, largely an agricultural state, must take 

 its place, must do its part in the development that is going on, 

 that has gone on rapidly and satisfactorily in the past, but that 

 must be helped and encouraged in the future as it has been in the 

 past, and I think the State is to be congratulated that this great 

 university, that we hear of throughout the east as one of the 

 leading institutions of the country, has taken up and is pushing 

 so energetically this question of the soil, its characters, its dis- 

 tribution, and its adaptation to crops, and the cultural methods 

 adapted to the different types; for these questions are important 

 to the State, as to the nation, for in the aggregate they make the 

 nation's wealth and the State's welfare, and it is necessary be- 

 cause of the lack of possible lines of organization, as we have 

 with commerce and with mines and minerals, it is necessary for 

 the State and the nation to help in the development of this, the 

 greatest resource of them all, and the most permanent resource. 

 And further, the national government, so far as I can speak 

 through the limited powers given me by Congress from year to 

 year in our annual appropriation bill, will be only too glad to 

 co-operate with the State of Missouri and try and arrange a defi- 

 nite and consistent basis of work, so that the work can be con- 

 centrated and finished sooner than either could finish it alone. 

 The many demands that are made on the National Bureau of Soils, 

 from all parts of the State, from all parts of the country, make 

 it imperative that we give our attention to different places, that 

 we scatter our work to satisfy the demands of the different states ; 

 but the time is coming, if Congress is willing, for me to take the 

 position that where the state appropriates some money to carry 

 on this soil survey and soil investigations, that the government 

 will meet them with an equal allotment from our appropriations, 

 and with the national forces and the state forces working to- 

 gether, we can evolve a plan, a continuous plan, that will enable 

 us to get this information for a state, such as Missouri, in eight 

 or ten years, instead of leaving it to the development of the gen- 

 eral national policy which, while satisfactory to the nation as a 

 whole, does not give an adequate service to any particular state. 

 And this is one of the messages I have brought to Missouri : That 



