338 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Appendix. 

 PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



BY R. G. F. CANDAGE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



Delegates to Farmers' National Congress, ladies and gen- 

 tlemen : Agriculture, as well as architecture and the arts, 

 rose in the east and spread to the west, and no more fit- 

 ting place could be found than this young and thriving 

 western State in which to hold the twenty-first annual 

 meeting of this Congress. 



South Dakota, one of the youngest sisters of the family 

 Union of States, though but sparsely populated in propor- 

 tion to its vast acreage, has nevertheless made such strides 

 of advancement in the past decade, in agriculture and 

 things that make for the comfort, happiness and prosperity 

 of her people, that her older sisters do not fail to take note 

 of the laurels she has won, and to rejoice with her in her 

 achievements, and to cheer her onward in the promise she 

 gives of still greater in the near future. 



In that article of prime necessity to man, life-giving and 

 life-sustaining wheat, — that article which furnishes one of 

 the highest standards of comparisons in real worth, " good 

 as wheat," — South Dakota in 1900 produced 20,149,684 

 bushels and stood ninth in the roll of wheat-producing 

 States, Kansas standing first. But in production, while 

 Kansas still held first place, with fifty-six bushels and a 

 fraction per capita, South Dakota, per capita, moved up 

 the line to second place, with fifty bushels and a fraction 

 engraved on her banners. 



Egypt, Syria and the Orient no longer contain the gran- 

 aries of the world, as was the case when the brethren of 

 Joseph went down into the valley of the Nile to buy corn, 

 which we call wheat. Egypt was then the America of the 

 world, where the older and the newer races of man flowed 

 into each other, as they now mingle in this land of ours. 

 When Asiatie hordes moved into Europe, occupied and 



