FARMERS' NATIONAL CONGRESS. 



233 



right ; an age in which capital, generally speaking, 

 is organized and combined for reasons which to 

 it seem just and right, so that when any problem 

 arises, from the question of distribution to the 

 question of legislation, they are prepared at short 

 notice to determine what action should be taken, 

 and then act as a unit. What is true of these 

 combinations is not true of the agricultural popu- 

 lation, and yet that population is ten-twenty- 

 ninths of the entire number engaged in industrial 

 pursuits in this country. The scope of our educa- 

 tional work should now be such that it will ex- 

 tend to this class of our population as much 

 information as possible, through some kind of 

 organization or through some means best suited 

 to that end, of the fundamental principles in- 

 volved in the economic questions of the times and 

 of their political duties and obligations to them- 

 selves and others through the governments under 

 which they live." 



More than 800 delegates were present, from 31 

 States. 



A Committee on Resolutions of one from each 

 State, selected by the delegates from each State, 

 was announced, and organized by electing Hon. 

 Benjamin F. Clayton, of Iowa, chairman, and Prof. 

 W. F. Massey, of North Carolina Agricultural 

 College and Experiment Station, secretary. 



Prof. T. J. Woofter, of Georgia, read a paper on 

 An Interoceanic Canal. He said : " Let us not 

 waste too much time quibbling over choice of 

 routes, but push to successful completion one or 

 the other. We need the canal. It is to be our 

 good right hand. Agriculture and manufacture 

 stimulate each other. Agriculture must furnish 

 much raw material; then, as more and more 

 people engage in manufacturing, greater demands 

 are made on agriculture to feed them. Roundly 

 put, then, stimulation in production of raw ma- 

 terials and increase in manufacturing must in- 

 evitably follow lessening cost of transportation 

 and extending the limits of the markets. New 

 England and the Middle Atlantic States, which 

 constitute the most important manufacturing sec- 

 tion of the country, have to ship to Europe to 

 contest the home markets of the Old World, or to 

 ship long distances to the Orient or to our Pacific 

 regions by way of Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope, 

 and the Isthmus of Suez. These manufacturing 

 regions must get some of their raw materials and 

 food supplies from the States on the Pacific Ocean, 

 and in turn these Pacific people desire the manu- 

 factured articles of New England. The water dis- 

 tance from New York to San Francisco is 15,000 

 miles; by an isthmian canal it would be 5,000 

 miles. The canal will give us a decided advantage 

 over the other nations of the world in the com- 

 petitive international stniggle which is certain to 

 take place to secure the industries of the great 

 Pacific Ocean." 



At the morning session, Oct. 8, a paper on Reci- 

 procity How may it affect Agricultural Interests? 

 was read by the Hon. John K. Campbell, of 

 Michigan. Mr. Campbell said he did not consider 

 it just " to frame a bill that will admit the raw 

 material free to benefit the manufacturer, and then 

 shut the door on the manufactured product by a 

 high tariff that enables the home manufacturer to 

 charge his own price, imposing on the farmer the 

 burden of the tax that benefits only the manu- 

 facturer." Referring to the beet-sugar industry, 

 lie said he favored a diversified system of agri- 

 culture, and that " every protection should be ex- 

 tend prl to the farmer that will aid him in develop- 

 ing the cultivation of the sugar-beet, or any other 

 product that the farmer, under proper protection, 

 can develop." 



At the afternoon session a paper on Forestry 

 and the Preservation of Forests was read by 

 George M. Whitaker, editor of the New England. 

 Farmer. He declared that not cotton- nor corn, 

 but "the tree is king! " He deplored the waste 

 in cutting and in using timber, and emphasized 

 the danger of a timber famine. " The supply of 

 oak and hickory in the Northern and Eastern 

 States has been so nearly exhausted as to create 

 a heavy demand for timber lands in Tennessee, 

 Arkansas, and Mississippi. The papers report 

 that all the wagon-manufacturers of the North 

 and East, as well as wood-working companies of 

 all kinds, have their agents in these States for the 

 purpose of buying up every available acre of 

 timber land. This is emphatically a farmer's ques- 

 tion. A tree is a product of the soil. The na- 

 tional Department of Agriculture is undertaking 

 to assist the farmer in applying better methods, by 

 which the forest on his wood-lot will be improved 

 without appreciably increasing the cost of harvest- 

 ing the forest crop." 



At the opening of the morning session, Oct. 9 r 

 Prof. Louis B. Magid, of Georgia, had a few 

 minutes in which to present the claims of silk- 

 growing in the United States. This he did so ably 

 that a strong sentiment manifested itself in the 

 congress favorable to the action of the national 

 Department of Agriculture to determine the feasi- 

 bility of silk-growing in this country. 



Prof. Magid's paper was followed by one in 

 favor of National Irrigation, by C. M. Heintz, 

 of California. This paper presented some striking 

 figures, including the following: " By the building 

 of irrigation systems, great wealth is actually 

 created. Take the Colorado delta, for an example. 

 Here is a body of about 900,000 acres of land arid 

 and worthless. The Colorado river is of sufficient 

 size, it is estimated, to reclaim 8,000,000 acres. 

 This land was worthless without the water, and 

 the water was worthless without the land. When 

 they are brought together, there are 900,000 acres 

 of land that will be worth, when fully reclaimed, 

 an average of $100 an acre, or a total of $90,000,- 

 000. National expansion should be confined to 

 building up our home country first. There is no 

 sense in subduing the jungles of the Philippine 

 Islands until we have first reclaimed the arid 

 wastes of America." 



The opposing view of National Irrigation was 

 presented in a paper by Gilbert M. Tucker, editor 

 of the Country Gentleman. He called attention to 

 the fact that " the vast development of our na- 

 tional contributions to the sustenance of the world 

 has no necessary relation to the welfare of the 

 men that raise the crops." He pointed out that 

 what was wise when the nation was younger 

 might be unjust and foolish when it had attained 

 a certain development. Speaking specifically of 

 the effects of national irrigation, especially as 

 it would bear upon agriculture, he said: " EVery 

 district brought from aridity into cultivation, by 

 irrigation, will for a long time export a consider- 

 able surplus of foodstuffs, and thus act to a 

 certain extent in bearing down the market price. 

 A second channel of mischief is the absorption by 

 the new lands of the men and women who ought 

 to supply, and in the normal condition of things 

 would supply, an abundance of labor, at moderate 

 prices, for established farmers. If the Government 

 is going into such [irrigation] business, we can 

 point out thousands of farms east of the Missis- 

 sippi where we should like to see it tried, and also 

 tens of thousands of farms east of the Mississippi 

 where we should like to see the Government apply 

 the correlative of irrigation tile drainage at the 

 public expense. There is no doubt whatever that 



