FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VI. 515 



something about the breeding of animals, ask him, and if he doesn't 

 know, you tell me. Whereas, twenty years ago we had one book on 

 agriculture, today there are literally hundreds. 



How does it happen that this tremendous amount of information has 

 come out during these last few years, when the world has been waiting 

 so long for it? Cause and effect — we had to have it. Our methods of 

 farming are changing very rapidly. Those of us who are right in the 

 business don't appreciate it, but they are changing nevertheless. Our 

 government made it possible to get this information by pouring some 

 millions of dollars every year into experiment stations to maintain 

 scientists. They are unlocking storehouses of great secrets, and the 

 colleges and the agricultural papers are giving out this information. 

 It is new information which has been developed in very recent years. 



And why is it necessary to have this information? Can you remem- 

 ber when you used to go out in the orchard and find a nice, plump 

 apple without a blemish on it? You can't do that today. Why can't 

 you? Because in these recent years, for some reason or other, the 

 codling moth has come in to do its business, and other insects have 

 come in to get at the vitals of that apple, or the blossom that preceded 

 it, and to attack the tree in various ways. It is an actual fact that 

 today, according to official statistics made by an entomologist who is 

 looked upon as authority, there are no less than fifty-six kinds of bugs 

 that infest an apple tree alone. You remember well how we would go 

 out into the potato held, and we didn't think anything about the Colo- 

 rado beetle or potato blight. You know how it is in Iowa now; we can 

 see the trees filled with splendid foliage. But just let me take you in 

 imagination down into Massachusetts or New Hampshire for a few 

 minutes, and there, along in July or August, instead of finding those 

 trees full of foliage, every leaf is stripped off and eaten by the larvae 

 of the browntail moth and the Japanese moth; and the United States 

 government has an army there fighting them. Already they have spent 

 more than $7,000,000 trying to keep those pests in the area already 

 infected. Those insects have already come into the state of Iowa. 

 Professor Summers, whose duty it is to examine all nursey stock 

 that comes into this state, has found a number of nests of those terrible 

 pests. 



I will not refer to cattle diseases. How does it happen that all of 

 those things are coming onto us so rapidly? I want to explain one 

 way in which they come. W^e are living in an age of mad rushing 

 from one thing to another and one place to another. It is character- 

 istic of the age. We get our minds set on one thing, and we want to 

 do it to the neglect of other things. We boast of the fact that we can 

 get a letter from here to New York City in about thirty-six hours, and 

 we think it is a great thing to get a package from Asia in two or three 

 weeks. It is, so far as convenience is concerned; but did you ever 

 happen to think that that rapid transportation is serving to bring pests 

 from one part of the world to another which previously would have 

 perished on the way? That is one reason why we are getting these 

 new troubles. 



