128 CONSERVATION 



ed their fields against the devastation free mail delivery and daily paper keep 



of wild beasts." Simply to drive away him in touch with the world. In many 



a herd of deer or wild boars destroying instances he has a piano and library, 



his harvest was to bring upon the head keeps a bank account, rides in an auto- 



of the rustic swift and certain ven- mobile and puts his sons and daughters 



geance. not only through the public schools, 



Further, the tools and implements of but through the Agricultural College or 



husbandry have, till yesterday, been of State University. Western bankers 



the rudest and crudest sort. In fact, complain that farmers compete with 



in Oriental lands they are to-day sub- them as money-lenders, 

 stantially the same as those with which For this astounding progress credit 



the reapers of Boaz harvested his bar- is, in no small measure, due to James 



ley, or the peasants of the Nile pro- Wilson, Secretary of the United States 



duced the crops which Joseph gathered Department of Agriculture. Assuming 



into Pharaoh's corn-cribs; while fam- charge, twelve years ago, of a depart- 



ines still claim their millions. ment whose faintest possibilities had 



Not only so, but from every item of barely been dreamed of, he set to work 



the paltry crop produced in such cir- to make that department an engine for 



cumstances, a heavy tribute was ruth- the practical uplift of the rural popula- 



lessly exacted. While the widow of tion an agency whereby the farmer 



whom Carlyle wrote has been gather- might be enabled more effectively to 



ing nettles for. her children's din- help himself. In contrast with the 



ner, the perfumed seignior, delicately "scientific" pedant, who cannot see the 



lounging in the Oeil de Boeuf, has woods of actual life and crying human 



been devising an alchemy whereby he needs for the trees of his books and 



might extract from her the third nettle apparatus, and who scorns the practical 



and call it "rent." as "unprofessional," Secretary Wilson 



Little wonder agriculture has lagged was a breeze from the ocean in August, 



and languished ! To a bureau chief he said, on assuming 



But look at it in the United States ! charge : "Don't tell me now about your 



In 1904 our crops equaled five times laboratories. Tell me what you are 



the total output of our mines, including doing for the man at the plow, out in 



those of gold, coal and iron. In 1907 the fields with his coat off!" There, in 



they had increased by twenty per cent., little, we see a giant entering upon a 



and amounted to the sum of $7,412,- giant's work. 



000,000. Estimating our population at What is the United States Depart- 



80,000,000, and grouping these into ment of Agriculture? Let him who 



families of five, this would mean a vol- would know its alphabet at least study 



ume of agricultural produce alone its Year-Book. Then, if practicable, 



amounting to $463.25 for every family let him see the department itself ; its 



in the United States. multitudinous offices scattered over 



For machinery, farmers of this coun- blocks of territory, and its majestic 



try paid in 1904 as much as Jefferson new building gradually taking shape, 



paid for Louisiana and, in addition. Then he should see some of the other 



laid aside several hundred millions agricultural institutions of the country, 



more than the gold reserve maintained which more or less closely co-operate 



by the National treasury. with the department at Washington ; 



For many, agricultural life in the fifty-nine agricultural experiment 



America is still hard ; yet, beside that stations distributed among all the 



of our Colonial forefathers, to say noth- States and Territories ; the sixty-five 



"ing of that of Old World delvers, it is agricultural colleges, one or more in 



well-nigh ideal. Good roads and trol- every State, and in every Territory 



ley lines are connecting the farmer with save three, with their 66,193 students 



his local market. The telephone, rural and their 6,243 salaried workers: the 



