FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VIII. 533 



the fartherest extremity of productive land. He can "trek" no more. 

 Nearly everywhere in the West, land measured by its commercial value 

 has reached a common level. If new fields are opened, it must be by 

 immense expenditure for irrigation. 



With the increase in land values comes a demand for an increase 

 in its productiveness. The great question is "how this may be accom- 

 plished?" The answer is simple. By more intelligent direction, a broader 

 knowledge of stock, of breeds, of grains and of soil, and closer attention 

 to details. To accomplish this we must educate. 



Our manufacturing interests, especially the packing houses, where 

 nothing goes to waste, are splendid examples of management and econ- 

 omy. Here the work is directed by an intelligent head and executed 

 by competent subordinates. But. in our country, for a long time to come 

 (we hope the time will be very long) the farming industry will be in 

 the hands of small independent farmers, and in order to get best results 

 he must combine knowledge with executive ability. In fact, he must 

 possess qualifications that would fit him for success in almost any other 

 field of human endeavor. He must know what crops are best suited to 

 his soil, and this is better learned by chemical analysis than by long 

 years of disappointing experiments. He must mature his products in the 

 shortest possible time conducive to profit. 



It is a well established law in the physical world that matter cannot 

 be destroyed, but a scrub animal or an inferior plant has the capacity 

 of storing it up so long that the returns from the investment are not 

 profitable. 



The average farmer doesn't encourage education enough. It is true 

 he sends his children to the public schools, and most of them receive 

 a fair knowledge of English. If the child is ambitious and wishes to at- 

 tend college, he is often sent, but nearly always with the fond hope that 

 some day he will be able to engage in a field of action other than 

 that of his early surroundings. 



Graduates of agricultural institutions would have a difficult time to 

 engage their services to the average farmer. They would be asked how 

 much corn they were able to husk, and whether or iiv^t they intended 

 to spend half their time in reading. The farmer does not stop to con- 

 sider that his hired man, unlike the laborer in public works, becomes 

 for the time a member of the family and to a certain extent exerts an 

 influence for good or bad upon it, especially the younger members. This 

 fact alone should appeal to him in favor of the man who with his knowl- 

 edge and graces of education would bring into the family an air of refine- 

 ment and culture that would be a revelation to the too often discontented 

 boy or girl who is looking impatiently forward to the time when he will 

 be able to leave the home nest and venture into the outer world. But the 

 chances are that the man who can pitch the most hay is preferred to 

 the man of accomplishments. There seems still to be a prejudice against 

 so-called "book learning." In Missouri, where one half of the people are 

 engaged in agriculture, and where the industry is considered so im- 

 portant that a law has been passed requiring the elements of the science 



