COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE 369 



driving horses, or manure for the lawns. We also need a clearer 

 statement of the farm products bought. These purchased products 

 are our future markets and deserve careful study. 



With the correction of a few details in these farm reports, we be- 

 lieve they will become the foundation for our recommendations in 

 the future. At least once each year we should go to the farms, re- 

 view the statements very carefully with those in charge, and to- 

 gether lay out the work for the coming year. This should be done 

 thoroughly, whether it takes a few hours or a week. 



I believe we have made real progress in this work, but, after all, 

 we are only scratching the surface and could do better. We have 

 been trying to send from time to time experts on the garden, dairy, 

 swine, and other different branches of the work. Some of these ex- 

 perts should be giving their entire time to the work, as we have 

 many important problems to solve. It would often be very profit- 

 able if we could send a man to certain farms to study their prob- 

 lems for a week or so. This would be valuable, not only to the in- 

 stitutions, but to the State at large. 



Several years ago in one of his interesting talks, Dr. Liberty 

 Hyde Bailey said, " Water your garden with the garden rake." A 

 listener addressed a letter to the Doctor, asking what he meant by 

 it, and this was his full reply : " Think it over." The gentleman 

 did think it over, and it is now a well-known fact that cultivation 

 lessens the capillary attraction of the soil and conserves moisture. 



Mr. George H. Walker, President of the splendid Walker-Gor- 

 don Farms, in a recent address in Atlantic City, said: "At one 

 time in our business history we purchased for several years practi- 

 cally all of our hay in Canada, paying $3.50' per ton for duty and 

 $3.50 per ton for transportation, while the dealer's price delivered 

 at our railway station was $15 a ton. Only about one-half of the 

 cost went to the producer and this indicated to me the possibility 

 that we could raise the hay on our own farms at as low a cost as it 

 could be raised anywhere and save at least the cost of transporta- 

 tion. We are now raising about two thousand tons of alfalfa hay 

 in New Jersey each year, enough to feed all of our cows, both in 

 New Jersey and in Massachusetts, and the saving on freight rates 

 alone is sufficient to pay a fair dividend on the capital stock of our 

 company. We are now seeding our land to alfalfa on our Massa- 



