SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART II 105 



The gentlemen who have been up here recently attending the Inter- 

 national Live Stock Exposition and who have seen a great many of the 

 conditions of this country, are particularly pleased, I think, at the excel- 

 lence of the live stock and with our educational system. They are 

 adopting the educational methods of this country to a large extent and 

 there is every reason to believe that these relations are friendly and the 

 basis of mutual advantage will continue. We should therefore cultivate 

 the acquaintance of those people and endeavor to establish closer trade 

 relations with them, and -I believe they will be good buyers of our 

 manufactured products. They have a great deal of admiration for the 

 genius and the enterprise, and particularly the manufacturing ability, 

 of the United States, and they are going to expect a good many of our 

 men to come down there in the future and help them in their manufac- 

 turing enterprises. Probably when we get back to normal conditions and 

 boat space is restored upon the seas to its former normal capacity there 

 will be a very large exchange of products. We will get from them raw 

 material in the main and in turn will send to them our manufactured 

 products. 



THE STATE'S PART IN AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES. 



BY C. P. NORGORD, COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE, WISCONSIN. 



My subject today is "The State's Part in Agricultural Activities." I 

 have had the pleasure of talking to a good many farmer audiences in 

 various agricultural communities, representing the state, and very often 

 I find that the absence of horny hands and the presence of a crease in 

 my trousers, the cut of my clothes, and too high a collar, take up a 

 little too much of the attention of my audience, and they do not always 

 believe what I have to say. Perhaps I ought to come with a pair of 

 overalls on in order to make it appear that I had once taken hold of 

 a fork handle. 



A young man was at one time addressing farmers along these lines, 

 fixed up in all the spangles worn by a young man just from the schools, 

 and his word was doubted by the farmers as they looked him over, and one 

 of them said: "You fellow with the crease in your pants and the soft 

 hands and the high collar; do you really know anything about dairying 

 and the subject you are talking about? Suppose we were to turn you 

 over in charge of our stock, would you be able to pick out the calf that 

 would make the best cow?" "Oh yes, certainly I could," said the young 

 man, "I would pick out the heifer calf." So that there are things we 

 can learn from unexpected sources and the man who is not willing to 

 learn from different sources, it may be is not the most progressive man. 

 We have a government that we know as a democracy and we all feel 

 that we have the greatest possible liberty. We own our own lands; 

 we have our own private business and enjoy our private rights, and it is 

 well that it is so. It is a good thing to live in the land of liberty 

 and the land of the free, and it is only because of the individual rights 



