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who even until the present generation have taught ahnost every- 

 thing except the application of science to agriculture. The 

 fault lies also with the statesmen who, as James J. Hill says, 

 have "unduly assisted manufacture, commerce, and other ac- 

 tivities that center in cities, at the expense of the farm." 



There was no need whatever that the cultivable farm lands 

 of the eastern states should have been depleted. Lying at the 

 door of our greatest markets, with the application of knowledge 

 and with such encouragement as should have been given, those 

 lands could easily have been preserved and even increased in 

 fertility until their present value would have been not five 

 dollars but five hundred dollars an acre. 



Even now are the yoamg men of the United States putting 

 ninety million dollars a year into Canadian farms. Why? Be- 

 cause they were not taught in the schools that by investing 

 those millions in the application of science to agriculture they 

 can remain in the United States and secure greater profit and 

 also save our soils from depletion ; yes, make our partially de- 

 pleted lands even more productive than they ever were, and 

 at the same time provide the food that will soon be required to 

 feed our own children. 



Why do we premit the annual exportation of more than a 

 m.illion tons of our best phosphate rock, for which we receive 

 at the mines the paltry sum of five million dollars, carrying 

 away from the United States an amount of the only elemenr 

 of plant food we shall ever need to buy, that, if retained in this 

 country and applied to our own soils, would be worth not five 

 million, but a thousand million dollars, for the production of 

 food for the on-coming generation of Americans? 



Why this exportation? Because the ])resent owners of Ameri- 

 can land learned only the art of agriculture and were never 

 taught the science of farming; and it may well be repeated that 

 the responsiblity rests not with the farmer, but with the states- 

 man and the educator. 



Note well the following facts : 



During the past dozen years the average acreage in corn and 

 wheat in the United States has been increased by 30 percent; 



