Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 89 



had so many progressive farmers, that they were interested in 

 the good-road movement, and that they were keeping step in every 

 particular with the farmers of every other state. 



I welcome you, finally, because your mission here is to a large 

 extent an unselfish and patriotic one. You are here to get informa- 

 tion that will aid you and which you will take home to your neigh- 

 bors. I know what it means for farmers to leave home in the 

 midst of such stormy weather in January, and travel the distance 

 that many of you have traveled in coming to Columbia. It means 

 sacrifice, inconvenience and present loss. Missouri can congratu- 

 late herself that she has so many farmers of the progressive type 

 who are willing to brave the snow and zero weather in order to 

 avail themselves of this meeting. But I am sure that the interest- 

 ing and instructive addresses to be here delivered by some of the 

 leading educators and agricultural scientists of our State and of 

 our nation will fully repay you for making this sacrifice. 



We sincerely trust that your meeting here will not only be a 

 pleasant and instructive one, but that you will thoroughly acquaint 

 yourselves with our State University, and especially with the 

 agricultural department. And, while we are making the schools 

 all over the S'tate of proper size and furnishing them as they 

 should be furnished, let us, indeed, make the Missouri University 

 and the Agricultural College what we so often call them, "the cap- 

 stone of our educational system." I hope and I believe that the day 

 is not far distant when the Senators and Representatives in our 

 General Assembly will not only make liberal appropriations for our 

 eleemosynary institutions, but that the value of education, and 

 especially of agricultural education, will be so highly appreciated 

 that everything will be procured that money can get to give the 

 Missouri farmers the best of education and give it to them on Mis- 

 souri soil. I believe the farmers who attend these annual mid- 

 winter meetings have it in their power to exert sufficient influence 

 over the lawmaking body that will result in giving Missouri farm- 

 ers what they should have, the best that the land affords. I 

 am sure that the lady farmers will work for higher agricultural 

 education ; and if the men will work in season and out of season for 

 the betterment of farmers and of farm life, as do the women, the 

 "poor farmer" will be supplanted by the up-to-date farmer. 



I recently heard a story told by President H. J. Waters of the 

 Kansas Agricultural College, whom all Missourians hope will be 

 Secretary of Agriculture under President Wilson. The story is 

 on a Mississippi farmer. This farmer was awakened each mora' 



