AGRICULTURE AND RURAL LIFE DAY. 



PART I. MAN'S STRUGGLE FOR FOOD. 



MAN AND NATURE. 



The history of our agricultural developments illustrates this prin- 

 ciple — that enlightenment is increased by inventions and discoveries, 

 which in turn create new industrial problems that call for still other 

 inventions and discoveries. Thus man is ever modifying or changing 

 his environment, while the environment is ever modifying or chang- 

 ing the habits of man. The intelligence of man and the forces of 

 nature are acting and reacting on each other, while the race is work- 

 ing upward, always passing into higher and clearer intellectual zones, 

 where many phenomena, once mysteries, are made plain, and new 

 forces are brought into service for the advancement of the race. 

 Moreover, as the arts of life have unfolded, man has become more 

 open-minded to natural causes. He has learned to adjust himself 

 more readily to the forces of the world about him, to work in har- 

 mony w^ith them, and to adopt for his own use many things in the 

 natural world which were once thought to be useless or harmful. 

 The world has practically been made over in the past hundred years. 

 New sciences have been evolved that have given a new meaning to 

 life. New occupations have been opened up, making it easier for 

 men of different talents to provide an honest living. New subjects 

 have been added from time to time to our school curriculum, until 

 the whole purpose of education has undergone a complete change. 

 New foods for man, beast, and plant have been discovered, and 

 ancient food plants have been so influenced, and their habits have 

 been so changed, that they bring forth an hundredfold more than 

 they did in their original state. These are some of the results of 

 man and nature working together in harmony. 



— Selected from Brooks' " Story of Cotton." 



HOW NATIONS HAVE FOUGHT FOR LAND. 



Man can not live without food, and the great wars of the world 

 have been iii the main wars of conquests for new territory, new 

 river valleys, or fertile plains where the cereals grow and where the 



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