548 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTUEE. 



about except under a condition of material prosperity, we have especially 

 in mind as following along in the wake of our material prosperity two 

 notable institutions, first, our free school system, and, second, the peri- 

 odical press with their infinite resource of instruction and diversion. 



It is proposed next to look for the moment at the subject from a 

 missionary point of view. In the geography we studied in the early six- 

 ties it was set down that one-sixth of the population of the globe were 

 nominally Christian and the economic movement we are considering is 

 reaching only a small part of the one-sixth. In fact, up to the present 

 time it is largely confined to the English-speaking nations of the world. 



But there is reason to believe that at no distant day America's new 

 economic movement may effect the agricultural regeneration of Russia. 

 In this matter I shall content myself with a statement touching the extent 

 of our exportation into Russia of American farm machinery and leave 

 the rest to your imagination. 



In the spring of 1901, within a certain twenty days, twenty thousand 

 tons of mowers, reapers, threshers, harvesters, cleaners and rakes were 

 shipped from New York alone to Russian ports. 



During the months of April and May, each year, the wharves at 

 Odessa and other Black Sea ports are lined for miles with American ag- 

 ricultural machinery. Heavily laden, trains depart daily for every part 

 of European Russia, with no other freight than farm implements. The 

 big cases containing the carefully numbered parts are distributed at 

 cities, towns and way stations. At the bank of the rivers great barges 

 wait in readiness to float their quota up or down stream and where the 

 railroad ends toward Asia long caravans of camels take up the load and 

 carry it to far off corners of the Russian empire, where the patient "ship 

 of the desert" is driven in harness to reapers and mowers of America. 



And a heart of stone has that man who does not rejoice that in the 

 near future the brightness of the American home may be duplicated in 

 remote Asia. 



Finally, by way of a last word on the industrial regeneration we have 

 been contemplating, and by way of throwing a flower into the grave of 

 the pioneers of that movement, I beg to say that had it so happened that 

 Jas. Watt was not born and that Mr. Whitney, Mr. Cartwright, Mr. Mc- 

 Cormick and Mr. Bessemer did not come among us and live their lives 

 among us into the encircling gloom, then the thatched hovel with its 

 attendant poverty would still be the home of the race. While the free 

 school and the periodical press would still await the creative fiat. 



In the great and beneficient movement which we have outlined there 

 is no regualr methodical paid helper except the agricultural college. Its 

 function we may define as one to carry forward and complete so far as 

 possible the work already begun of assisting the human hand in its 

 producing potentiality. And that school best does its work which with 

 men and apparatus is best equipped for constructive work. We mean 

 by that expression, or wording "constructive work," work which will send 

 forth men and women to block out the kind of work already done on new 

 lines. Not to do this is, we believe, to let our civilization lag and de- 

 generate. 



