No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 333 



I do not wish to belittle outside agencies, but 1 do want to protest, 

 to those who attempt to teach lessons on fertility, against unduly 

 emphasizing the necessity of hauling material from the ends of the 

 earth to put on the land, but to teach such methods and practices as 

 will enable the general farmer to regain, maintain and increase the 

 productive power of his land. 



Another important lesson in need of emphasis by teachers is that 

 the farmer must specialize more than he has in the past. In the olden 

 days when every farm was a little kingdom, independent within it- 

 self, when practically all that the farmer and his family used was pro- 

 duced and manufactured on the farm, the crops and rotation of that 

 day were suited to the needs. But farmers no longer make their 

 tools, harness, boots and shoes, soap and candles; the whir of the 

 spinning wheel and the pounding of the loom are no longer heard in 

 the farm home, but instead all these things are purchased necessitat- 

 ing the expenditure of money, the equivalent of labor or its products 

 and the farmer who has no speciality has little to exchange for the 

 necessities he does not produce- Farmers have been slow to adapt 

 themselves to the changed conditions; slow to realize that he can't 

 live the individualistic life of his grandfathers, but that he is part of 

 a larger and more complex life where he must exchange the value 

 of the products he has for those he does not have. He too often sticks 

 to the crops and rotation of a former day, raising a little of every- 

 thing, just enough for home use, and does not have a money crop — 

 does not have a specialty that he may exchange for the thousand and 

 one things required in the modern home. So we need to teach the 

 necessity of a specialty on every farm, one* suited to the man, the 

 soil and the market. And this not as an individual, but as a com- 

 tDunity. Every community of farmers would be benefited by meeting 

 and planning together as though their farms were one big farm and 

 they were joint owners. In the future, crops will be raised and sold 

 co-operatively. You say this is visionary? Maybe it is but it is in 

 line with modern business methods. It is one of the necessitie-s in 

 bringing closer together the producer and the consumer, one of the 

 most important questions confronting us. Buyers are attracted to 

 a community where there is produced an abundance of fine fruit, or a 

 good breed of cattle. A community noted for its good butter or its 

 fine poultry can sell to a better advantage. In all such cases, sales 

 are more easily made and better prices are obtained. A study of the 

 soil, climate, water and markets should be made and the specialty 

 selected which is best adapted to them. Farmers would find as 

 much opportunity for applying the much-talked-of methods of "scien- 

 tific management" as do the captains of other industries. 



These things emphasize another important question, the need of 

 organization among farmers. Neither the individual life nor the 

 community life is as useful or as strong when the individual stands 

 alone as when all are working intelligently and harmoniously to- 

 gether. Farmers and their families need meet together, to talk to- 

 gether; to discuss social, economic and political questions effecting 

 them to the end that they may intelligently and concertedly meet 

 the duties of citizenship resting upon them. In this way he loses the 

 fear to think and act independently. The events of the past few 

 months have shown the intelligent farmer that there is no such thing 

 any more as a "stand-patter." Even the professional politicians, re- 



