128 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



Stock we can, and if our bank account is not so plethoric we can, with 

 g'ood grace, lay claim to patriotism and say what is our loss is our 

 country's gain. 



T had a letter from one of the best breeders in England and he sent 

 mi,, along with that letter, a paper. He had a bull called Lord Roberts 

 that he thought could win anything at the World's Fair. I wrote back 

 and told him he ought to bring his bull over. This paper was one of 

 the leading live stock journals in England and I looked it over. What 

 was called quite a sale, a big run, was, all told, six thousand cattle of 

 all kinds. This was an unprecedented sale. I wrote back to him : "Old 

 man, cross the water if you have to come in a tub, and go to our cattle 

 markets and it will be an eye-opener to you." This man was Wm. 

 Tudy, one of the best cattle breeders in England. What a surprise it 

 would have been for him to go to the Chicago market, for instance, and 

 see thirty-two thousand head of cattle and hogs come in ! They don't 

 know that we have such a country and we hardly know it ourselves. 

 We have made money easily because we had a fertile soil and while we 

 are hampered by the railroads, it is because our eyes are not opened. 

 If we were pushed to the bed rock and each man had only three or four 

 bullocks and had to account for every penny that he made, we would 

 wake up and attend to things. Undoubtedly we would see that the cat- 

 tle markets were not controlled by the railroad men. 



But the farmers are coming to the front because they are becoming 

 educated. Our papers are being brought to our doors and the telephone 

 and other things are waking up the farmers. 



But these agricultural colleges are the colleges. I have as much 

 veneration for the classic pile that stands before us as anyone. An edu- 

 cation can hurt no one. It is a scafTolding on which one can climb 

 higher. When you read a thing, you not only read it, but digest and 

 assimilate it and understand it. But with an academic education, unless 

 the boy has a marked talent for the calling for which he has educated 

 himself, he will be a cripple all his life. He has nothing practical to 

 which he can hold on. Failing in a profession, lie can do nothing but 

 teach school. 



When our farmers have been educated in the agricultural colleges 

 we will leave the old methods and follow new ideas. We will not only 

 be the granary, but we will feed the world, and we will be the masters 

 of the world. Other nations may build up their great navies, but if we 

 farmers will build up our granaries, we can say to them, "we will shut 

 off your feed if you fool with us," and we will be the masters of the 

 situation, for the pocket-book rules the world. 



We cannot with the widest scope of the imagination read the magni- 



