NINTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 86 
times a dominant interest, sometimes a dormant interest; sometimes 
illy directed, sometimes not directed at all, sometimes well directed. 
The interest in agriculture is not so universal, and yet there is perhaps 
no one general topic in which the interest is so rapidly increasing as 
on the subject of agriculture. Everywhere that we go, in every paper 
that we pick up, almost everywhere that men meet together — in the 
last few years, particularly, it has become noticeable to me that the 
interest in agriculture is increasing wonderfully. The terms of "hay- 
seed" and "clodhopper" and "Rube" belong entirely to another genera- 
tion. The only people that I know of that use those now are a set over 
in the big cities like New York and Chicago, who are preparing car- 
toons for such papers as Puck and Judge, that we find around barber 
shops; and those dear people are living just one generation behind. 
You know when we get a cartoonist like we have in this city (and I 
question whether there is his equal anywhere in the United States — 
when "Ding" gets up a cartoon with the farmer in it he represents him 
in the modern conception. So there are but few people but have come 
to recognize that the farm and the farmer and farming are now the 
cynosure of all eyes. Contempt is no longer held by thoughtful people 
for the tiller of the soil. 
I am not sure that I read the signs of the times aright, but I take 
this to be an indication of a great movement for more intelligent and 
improved agriculture. 
There are three great processes of society: the production of raw 
material, the manufacture of that raw material into a finished manu- 
factured product, and the transportation of that fanufactured product 
from place to place. The last one hundred years have seen an intense 
attention given to two of them. Never in the history of mankind, as 
we all know, , has the genius of not only the Yankee, but of all civil- 
ized people, brought forth such results in the processes of manufacture 
and transportation; and while the problems of manufacture and trans- 
portation are not yet all solved, still to my humble mind there is no 
question whatever but that we are far ahead in those two departments 
of human activity over the first activity which I mentioned; that of 
the production of raw material. Just think it over a little and see if 
you won't agree with me. The genius of invention, the organization 
and use of capital, have expended themselves upon the problems of 
manufacture and transportation. "What is the result? The result is 
that the process of producing raw material is far behind what it should 
be; and while the last generation has devoted itself to manufacture 
and transportation improvement, I look forward to the next one hun- 
dred years to intensify its application to process for the production of 
raw material. 
Everybody is thinking about farming, as I said a little while ago. The 
commission our own beloved Henry Wallace is a member, is just a 
headed by that brilliant man from New York, Dr. Bailey, and of which 
commission our own beloved Henry Wallace is a member, is just a 
straw which shows which way the wind blows. Some people thought 
they saw in that a political movement. I am sorry for the person who 
can't see wider and deeper than that. Statesmen do not make move- 
