EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. XX. Febrcary, 1909. No. 6. 



The report of the Secretary of Agriculture for 1908, in addition to 

 reviewing the work of the Department for that year, presents a most 

 interesting and instructive epitome of the progress of agriculture in 

 the United States during the past twelve years, and of the principal 

 causes which have contributed to the phenomenal growth recorded. 

 Among the agencies to whose activities this progress is due the Secre- 

 tary includes not only this Department " but also the experiment 

 stations, the agricultural schools and colleges, the State boards and 

 conmiissioners, the agricultural press, and the farmers themselves 

 in their individual and collective efi'orts." 



" Momentous changes," the Secretary states, " have occurred to agri- 

 culture in this country during the last dozen years. Features of 

 great import have been introduced. Forces have become operative 

 whose results are already enormous, with the certainty of cumulative 

 and accelerated future consequences for the Nation's good and well- 

 being. The farmer's work and harvest have had the benefit of more 

 varied knowledge and more effective intelligence. His life and liv- 

 ing have undergone transformations which increasingly make the 

 farm preferable to the town. 



" This period has developed an amazing and unexampled pros- 

 perity for the farmer. His improving financial condition has been 

 both an effect and a cause — an effect partly of his own efforts joined 

 to those of public agencies, and also the means of making his life and 

 the lives of his wife and children the better worth living." 



The Secretary shows in some detail how the period referred to has 

 been marked b}^ a change from low to profitable prices for farm 

 products and how, " relieved of the weight of debt and of suffering 

 under unprofitable prices, the farmer felt more responsive than before 

 to the help offered bv the Department of Agriculture, the experiment 

 stations, and other sources during the period under review. Thou- 

 sands of learned investigators worked for him. Thousands more 

 talked to him repeatedly. Thousands of demonstrations taught how 

 to do by doing. Many boys were educated in agriculture. Hundreds 

 of millions of copies of publications were sent broadcast." 



One of the most important results of these systematic and wide- 

 spread efforts to apply science to the practice of agriculture has been 



501 



