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The newspapers, of course, are most essential agencies in dissemi- 

 nating information as to the work in which we are engaged, and it is a 

 pleasure to refer to them. 



This morning I came into Philadelphia; I picked up a North Ameri- 

 can and found a two-column editorial devoted to and commending our 

 work and our new magazine — The Banker-Farmer. The newspapers 

 have given space to this conference, not as much as they should have 

 given, but I believe the newspapers were taken unawares, as many of 

 the rest of us were, for it is an unheard-of thing to have a bank, and a big 

 city bank at that, attempt such a conference as that now closing. This 

 conference is of great importance, as you must realize. I have been here 

 three days and I don't know of any meeting, farm, conference or institute, 

 I have attended where the program has been so wide and varied, as well 

 arranged as this, with relation to the question of agriculture and rural 

 life in its varied phases. 



After the 1912 meeting of the Pennsylvania Bankers' Association, 

 when its first Committee on Agriculture was appointed, they showed 

 great interest in your State Agricultural College, and tried, as I under- 

 stand it, to get a much larger appropriation than the $10,000 a year ap- 

 propriated for farm demonstration, and to which Mr. Calwell has referred. 

 As I came down here the other day, I stopped off at State College to see 

 what they were doing, and Dean Watts asked me to speak to the boys 

 in the agricultural college. I found in talking with him that the college 

 in 1910-11 had 437 young men in attendance. In 1912-13, two years 

 later, this number had grown to 2,000. Think of that growth and the 

 promise it offers. A five-fold increase in the last two years. It is indica- 

 tive of what the bankers and business men may help to accomplish, and 

 the Pennsylvania Bankers' Association has a great field before it. 



Thirty-six Bankers' State Associations now have committees on 

 agriculture and education. These committees are meeting in annual 

 conference, having met recently in Kansas City, your State Association 

 being represented by Mr. Stubbs , and Mr. James, whose untimely death 

 we all mourn, was chairman of your Committee on Agriculture, one of 

 the best known men in the American Bankers' Association. He was 

 substantially the author of the new platform and constitution of the 

 American Bankers' Association. 



As an outgrowth of this conference of the various state bankers' 

 associations, you have The Banker-Farmer monthly, some few copies of 

 which have been distributed about the room. 



The Agricultural Commission of the American Bankers' Association 

 is publishing The Banker-Farmer to review the activities of the banker, 

 and his State Association and Committees, looking toward a better agri- 

 culture and rural life, not simply as a matter of information, but with the 

 idea that bankers will read it with the thought in mind, ''In what way 

 may I assist and co-operate in this work of agricultural and rural life 



