904 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



be well if they should form the principal themes at a subsequent 

 session. 



First, it was made very clear that the exact nature of the problem 

 and the methods of its solution must be determined by the patient 

 labors of thoroughly trained experts. It was from what such experts 

 have already done that the really important data contained in the 

 addresses of the President, the governors, and other speakers were 

 derived. The President did well to recognize the importance of the 

 expert in his call for the conference, and the governors responded 

 well in their choice of delegates to accompany them. While the gov- 

 ernors properly occupied the foreground of this assembly and did 

 most of the talking as the representatives of the people, they were 

 backed and surrounded by a strong body of men to whom they could 

 look with safety for sound knowledge and wise advice on the great 

 questions before the conference. Among these experts were the 

 heads of agricultural colleges and experiment stations and chiefs of 

 the Department of Agriculture, with the Secretary at their head. 



This recognition of the expert as an all-important factor in the 

 solution of our agricultural problems argues well for the final out- 

 come. It marks a great step of progress in the thought of our people 

 regarding agriculture. It also lays on our agricultural experts and 

 the institutions which train and employ them a responsibility the 

 importance of which they are only beginning to realize. It furnishes 

 an additional and conclusive argument for supplying the best facili- 

 ties and the amplest opportunities for training the men who are to 

 be the leaders in agricultural progress, for we now see as never before 

 that on them will rest the burden of pointing out the ways by which 

 the material salvation of this country is to be made sure. 



But, secondly, our material salvation Avill not be made sure until 

 the masses of men conducting our 6,000,000 farms are intelligent 

 enough to understand and adopt the methods of soil conservation 

 which the experience of ages and the researches of the experts show 

 are most effective and permanent in their results. To accomplish 

 this we must do what no country or age has ever done — educate our 

 entire rural population to be progressive and up-to-date farmers. 

 The only way to accomplish this is to begin with the country chil- 

 dren, and the only place in which the new gospel of material salvation 

 can be so taught as to reach and convert everybody is the public 

 school. 



We must not neglect to instruct our adult farmers through farmers' 

 institutes, demonstration farms, Department and station bulletins, 

 books, and the public press. But until the child of the farmer is 

 properly taught from early youth so as to realize that he must do 

 better than his forbears, and that on him rests a Aveighty responsi- 

 bility to make the farm which he inherits or earns more fertile at 

 his death than when he received it, can we hope for general arrest 



