80 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



THE AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT AND ITS RELATION TO 



THE FARMER. 



BY HON. JAMES WILSON^ SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. 



The Agricultural Department and its relation to the farmer. It is a 

 plain story. The Agricultural Department is trying to do something for 

 the men who work in the fields, who produce something, whether it is in 

 the North or whether it is in the South, whether it is in the East or 

 whether it is in the far West. Whenever the cry comes to us that some 

 farmer has difficulty, we note that he needs help, that he needs another 

 crop, we turn in to do what we can to help him. The old world has not 

 set us very good examples along this line. I learn tonight that the people 

 of Australia have been here to get one of our educated agriculturists to 

 go down to the antipodes and help them to organize their agriculturists. 

 An agricultural education is something that has had very little attention 

 anywhere until within our day. Away back in the early 60s, in fact in 

 the late 50s, the United States government was donating land to build 

 transportation routes across the country and it occurred to some of them 

 that it might be well to make donations to each of the states so that the 

 farmer and the mechanic might be educated. So in 1862 something of 

 this kind was done. Agricultural colleges were endowed, but it did not 

 occur to the people who contributed for that work that there was no one 

 who knew enough about agriculture to teach anything about it. A man 

 can only teach what he happens to know himself and there were very 

 few people in those days who knew anything about the science that 

 related to agriculture. The best farmers were they who worked on the 

 farm and learned by experience. Many of the sciences that relate to 

 agriculture were not thought of in those days and scarcely any help was 

 given by educated men to the young farmer. 



W^hen I went down to Washington I went from an Agricultural college 

 and my resolution then was to do what I could to strengthen the agricul- 

 tural colleges and experiment stations throughout the several states and 

 territories. I found it would be necessary before I was able to do much in 

 that line to strengthen the department of agriculture. It had not made 

 very much progress. Questions of economy faced those who were in 

 charge of it. I began to call upon the civil service commission to find 

 men to make investigations in regard to this and that feature of agricul- 

 ture. Advertisements were sent out over the United States to find 

 somebod}^ who knew something about the soil we stand upon, from which 

 we get our living, but I could not find anybody anywhere who knew any- 

 thing about soils. We had certain investigations we wanted to make 

 about certain plants and it became a necessity that we should know 

 something about the soil. I called upon Congress to give me more money 

 so that I could coax men to come and do soil work for me. It was no 

 use. Congress could not see the wisdom of doing that. It occurred to 

 me to turn to the agricultural colleges and bring the young graduates 

 to Washington and train them along those lines so when a call came for 



