228 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN INSTITUTE.  [VOL. xI 
The employment of fertilizers in Canada has been to date a very 
small matter compared with that in some other countries in which the 
soils are lighter and poorer than ours, but this use will assuredly increase. 
It cannot be otherwise with the adoption of intensive methods, the 
larger returns for farm produce, the increase in the price of land and the 
establishment of larger, better, steadier markets at home and abroad 
for farm produce. 
In this account I have said nothing of that part of our campaign 
that has dealt with the choice of crops, with live stock—their care and 
feeding. These matters, of almost equal importance with that of crop 
production, have received the attention they merit. Practically every 
phase of farm life and work has been dealt with, but time to-night has 
only permitted me to bring before you in outline our teachings in this 
fundamental proposition of increased crop production. 
At the outset of this address I said that this campaign to our farmers 
was one, not only of education, but one in which the men on the land 
were called upon from patriotic motives, as members of the great British 
Empire, to do their very best in these troublous times for their King 
and Country. They have been impressed with the fact that a great 
responsibility rests upon each one of them to put forth every effort 
possible towards increasing their farm products. As their lot is no easy 
one in ordinary times and doubly hard now that labour is so scarce, 
words of encouragement and inspiration have been spoken. Farmers 
are a hard working class under ordinary circumstances, now they are 
called upon to do a little more, work a bit longer and a bit harder. They 
need our sympathy and encouragement. 
But there is no need to dwell at length on this phase of the campaign. 
I cannot do better in closing than quote from an appeal by Lord 
Selborne, President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, to 
English farmers for an increase in the food production from the land. 
His words were direct and struck the right chord and they are as appli- 
cable in the Dominion of Canada as in the old land. He said: “You 
have something more on your shoulders than your own business to-day. 
You are no longer individual farmers making your own fortunes or 
losing them. You are trustees on your own land to do your best for 
England. You have your duty quite as clear and as definite as the captain 
of the cruiser or the colonel of a battalion. England has a claim on you 
farmers, men and women of every class, as clear as she has on our sons 
and husbands to go and serve in the trenches’’. These surely are 
inspiring words and clearly state the imperative duty of every farmer in 
the British Empire in these days. 
