Farming is founded on the facts of the locality: no 

 business can hope for the best success until it has ex- 

 act knowledge of its underlying conditions. 



These kinds of inquiries are now well under way 

 in the form of "surveys" of many kinds, proceeding 

 from the colleges of agriculture and the United 

 States Department of Agriculture. The studies of 

 larger range, that purpose to compare general agri- 

 cultural conditions in the Avhole national domain and 

 to standardize our knowledge of them, may well be 

 undertaken directly by the national government; 

 but the commonwealth itself should give itself the 

 advantage of making inquiries into its OAvn agricul- 

 tural conditions. The survey Avork of the institu- 

 tions will be greatly perfected in the next few years, 

 and we may expect to see great public funds devoted 

 to it. The surA^ey parties aa^II comprise strong, all- 

 round men. No small part of the A^alue of such sur- 

 veys AAdll be the discoA^ery of great numbers of earn- 

 est, competent men and women on the farms who 

 may be made local leaders, and the recognition that 

 it AA^ill giA^e to good agricultural practice CA^eryAA^here. 

 EA^ery thorough surA'ey should be the forerunner of 

 ncAA^ ideals for the conmiunities, and of ncAV points of 

 crystallization of local effort. It should make ncAv 

 paths. 



I later made another brief statement as folloAvs 



in "The Country-Life Movement," 1911: 



The taking stock of the exact condition and ma- 

 terials of country life is immensely important, for we 

 cannot apply remedies before Ave make a diagnosis, 

 and an accurate diagnosis must rest on a multitude 

 of facts that Ave do not noAV possess. This is the sci- 

 entific rather than the doctrinaire, politics, and orac- 

 ular method of approaching the subject. It is of the 

 first importance that we do not set out on this new 

 work with only general opinions and superficial and 

 fragmentary knowledge. Every rural community 



