Part I.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. 31 



than anywhere in the country, and markets at our doors, the 

 condition in which we find ourselves is certainly not healthy, 

 agriculturally speaking. 



The point in this question to which your attention is most 

 directed is of the necessity to organize for production as well as 

 for sale; organizing for marketing has been advocated and carried 

 out with some small results, but it is only beginning to dawn 

 upon us that in order to have something to sell we must first 

 grow something. True, we do have goods to sell, but only in a 

 very few centers can you find large quantities of well-grown 

 products of a given variety and grade. The necessity of really 

 beginning all over again in the production of crops seems not to 

 have occurred to us. We have thought that we could sell what- 

 ever we have grown; instead, we find that we are face to face with 

 agricultural products grown in other States by organizations which 

 have all the machinery for handling the crop from the seed to the 

 market. We have many splendid centers as yet untouched which, 

 when organized to grow one particular crop or a succession of 

 crops for the season, could easily, under good management, be- 

 come prosperous, self-sustaining communities. 



Last year we presented to the Legislature a bill for a chief of 

 markets, as an attempted first step in the general question of 

 improving the sale of our crops. This bill failed to become a 

 law, and it seems to the secretary that the time has now come 

 to present the whole matter of organization and markets to the 

 Legislature in order that the question may be more thoroughly 

 understood. That this matter is not alone for the farmer's 

 benefit ought to be apparent from the fact that increased pro- 

 duction and better distribution should work for the benefit of 

 the consumer as well as the producer, and that all interested in 

 the upbuilding of the State should see in a better agriculture 

 improved conditions in all walks of life. The productive use of 

 the now idle land will certainly bring to the towns a larger 

 population, increasing income from taxes, with a consequent 

 bettering of school, civic and health conditions. Land values 

 will certainly increase, and the effect from the success of one 

 center is bound to be transmitted to those near by and from 

 them to the cities. 



As a first step in this program there should be organized 



