154 BOARD OF AGRICULTURPl [Pub. Doc. 



the suijar cannot be made. The land is not tilled as it 

 should be, and the crops are not properly rotated in order 

 to produce the best results. And we never will succeed 

 in this undertaking until the agricultural department is 

 improved. Last week 1 saw a magnificent sugar factory, 

 preparing sugar for the table. They were turning out 

 thousands of tons of beet sugar. "How long have you 

 been running?" I asked. " Tlu'ce weeks," was the reply. 

 "How long will 3^ou run?" "Another week." Four 

 weeks, — with that magnificent factory, with that magnifi- 

 cent result ! To be stopped in the midst of its work, simply 

 because it had no beets to work with ! And with that splen- 

 did soil, and the climate, — Avhich is the most important 

 thing in growing beets, — and the beets pulverizing 14 and 

 15 per cent ; and the factory not getting enough to work 

 with, simply because the farmers don't understand the scien- 

 tific principles of growing beets, and don't want to learn. 

 But I am glad to say they are very rapidly improving in 

 this respect. Five or six years from now that factory will 

 be running three or four months a year. 



I believe that the great work of the agricultural experi- 

 ment station and of the ao-ricultural colleo;e is the ffreat work 

 of agriculture in this country, because it teaches the farmer 

 directly how to increase his jdeld of profits by a systematic 

 and scientific manner of feeding his plants ; and how the 

 food has got to come from all over the world, from where 

 it can be had ; from the atmosphere, a lot of it ; from the 

 soil, a part of it ; from distant countries, a part of it, when 

 those stores which nature has been laying by in the past are 

 made available. There is enough phosphoric acid in the 

 State of Tennessee to supply the whole demand of the United 

 States for five hundred years. It is to be taken out and 

 brought where it is needed. In South America nitroo-en 

 is plentiful, and Avill be made available. In Germany there 

 has been discovered potash, and the throwing down of pot- 

 ash is not confined to Germany alone. These have got to 

 be gathered and brought here to be used. 



But even then economy in the use of the fertilizer and 

 in savinii: the farm manure must be increased, so nothins^ 



