24 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE, 



Other words, he has been applying what we call the method of 

 scientific agriculture to his industry. The agencies by which 

 he has been able to do this may be summarized under the word 

 education, and the specific agencies in that direction have been 

 primarily the Federal Department of Agi'iculture, and under 

 it in more or less close relation the Experiment Stations, the 

 Agricultural Colleges, and by no means least such organiza- 

 tions as that here represented. 



But agriculture as an industry has made less advance, so far 

 as those features of it that we might call of economic efficiency 

 are concerned, than any other basic industry today. In com- 

 parison with transportation, in comparison with commerce, in 

 comparison with manufacture, in corhparison with mining, agri- 

 culture has in general failed to take advantage of the economies 

 and the efficiencies that lie before it, and we have in the experi- 

 ence of a foreign people methods and policies in operation in 

 connection with this matter of efficiency that we may very well 

 give attention to. 



Not the least point in which the American farmer has 

 failed to take advantage of the economies that are possible to 

 liim is in that of credit — the capital whereby he may accom- 

 plish more, whereby he may obtain a larger product to get a 

 larger result from his farm, from his occupation, than he has 

 been able to do thus far. Now the economies that we associate 

 with the other basic industries, such as transportation, such as 

 manufacture, are those in general that we may classify under 

 associated effort, combined effort, the economies of large scale 

 production, the economy of large scale buying, of large scale 

 selling, the economy that promotes an avoidance of the leaks 

 and wastes that have in former times been associated with all 

 industries and have in this way been largely removed by reason 

 of combination. Cooperation is the great form of busi- 

 ness organization that predominates in all these other fields. 

 It is not my purpose to enter into a discussion as to the reasons 

 why there seems to be little probability that we can ever expect 

 successful cooperation so far as the direct operation of farms 

 is concerned, but we may very safely say that there are possi- 

 bilities in the nature of combined effort on the part of farmers, 

 not the least of which is in the matter of combined effort to 



