406 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



do not know the real source of the new light which they see and 

 follow. 



But, however that may have been, the measure of the relative 

 success of the colleges in this direction is fairly determined when we 

 take into acconnt the number of workers in them and the extent of 

 their means for this work, as compared with the vastness of our 

 agricultural domain and population, the range of our agricultural 

 activities, and the operation of general economic forces entirely 

 beyond the control of educational institutions or even governments 

 and nations. 



Even if ever}^ farmer on the mailing lists of these colleges had been 

 effectively reached, less than one-tenth of our farmers ^vould have 

 been touched in this w^ay. Everybody connected with the agricul- 

 tural colleges will readily admit that the great mass of our farmers 

 are still outside the direct influence of these institutions. It would be 

 easy to bring millions of farmers to confess that they know little or 

 nothing of agricultural colleges and experiment stations. The great 

 desire and the most earnest effort of these colleges are noAv for the 

 development of more widespread and effective agencies for bringing 

 the results of their work home to the masses of farmers, through 

 itinerant lectures, movable schools, demonstration fields, railroad 

 sj^ecials, etc. The cry for men and funds wherewith to do this work 

 is heard on every hand. 



Nevertheless, with a small number of men and quite limited funds 

 the colleges have in the past reached more people and changed their 

 practice than was ever done in the same time by the same number of 

 men since the world began. This up to date is their crowning glory, 

 and it is the most hopeful j^resage of what they will accomplish when 

 adequately equipped and sufficiently supplemented by extension de- 

 partments, secondary schools, and other agencies for the populariza- 

 tion of agricultural knowledge. 



It may be well enough for the advocates of the conservation of 

 natural resources to lay great stress on the deterioration of our soils 

 by a careless and wasteful system of agriculture, and to point out the 

 importance of keeping up and increasing soil fertility so that produc- 

 tion may keep pace with our rapidly increasing population. This is 

 indeed bj' far the greatest of the conservation problems, and no class 

 of men have been more active in preaching this doctrine than our 

 agricultural teachers and experimenters. But our soils and our agri- 

 culture are not, broadly speaking, in the ruinous state in which they 

 are often depicted by the arousers of public sentiment on this great 

 question, and the strong statements of even the more conservative of 

 conservation advocates before popular audiences must not be taken 

 too literally when we are calmly considering our agricultural history 



