Part I.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. 9 



on in alarming proportion, and will undoubtedly continue so 

 until we find ourselves face to face with the problem of practical 

 conservation. In many sections of the country we are doing 

 exactly what China has been doing for centuries, — taking 

 crops from our soils, allowing erosion and returning nothing to 

 those soils. The fact that there are over 2,600,000 tenant 

 farmers in the country ought to be a severe indictment against 

 us for our wasteful methods, for under no system does agri- 

 culture depreciate so rapidly as by that of the tenant farmer. 

 The secretary had a good chance to note this in the south 

 recently, where one farm which prior to the civil war produced 

 40 bushels of corn to the acre now produces less than 10; and 

 of tobacco over 400 pounds, now less than 100. 



The big questions confronting the agriculture of the country 

 at this time, such as capital, labor, immigration, co-operation, 

 markets, the elimination of waste in handling, storage and 

 shipping, the lack of uniform laws between State and national 

 governments, and the lack of a definite policy in agriculture, are 

 being discussed on all sides. There is under discussion a 

 national agricultural organization board whose work would be 

 to assist in all kinds of agricultural organization. All of this 

 goes to show that the people of the country are alive to the 

 agricultural question. 



The country as a whole is each year finding out that we can 

 grow many of the things that we believed impossible of pro- 

 duction here a few years ago. The production of figs, dates, 

 olives, certain varieties of other semi-tropical fruits, as well as 

 vegetables, is an example of this. The shutting off of the im- 

 ported supplies of certain agricultural products has turned our 

 attention toward producing these crops in our own country; then, 

 too, demand has increased so rapidly that it must be met by 

 trying out all kinds of new things. 



Education in agriculture has reached the stage where not only 

 agricultural colleges but special schools of agriculture are being 

 established, as well as courses in high schools, and even in the 

 field of private endeavor agricultural schools are being estab- 

 lished. It is interesting to note that our colleges and universities 

 are in many cases adapting their courses to some of the agri- 

 cultural problems. 



