200 



I want to impress you with this fact, that we are not one-sided in our 

 work, but touch the production side of farming, the problems of marketing 

 and transportation, the community problems, and the home problems alike. 



You may ask, how are we able to do this? 



We do it by the employment of persons who by temperament, scientific 

 training, practical experience, and personality are able to instruct the 

 farmer, the business man, and the professional man in our state. These 

 extension instructors work in close touch with, and in perfect harmony with 

 the teachers of our college and the research men of our experiment station. 

 At present there are twenty giving full time and three or four part time in 

 the work. In fact, the Extension Service of our institution is the whole 

 college at work throughout the state. 



We do not accomplish this work by creating new organizations; we 

 work through granges, boards of trade, men's and women's clubs, with 

 the State Boards of Agriculture, Education and Health, and other state- 

 wide agencies, in fact with any organizations that will join with us un- 

 selfishly in building up the agriculture and rural life of our commonwealth. 

 By this means all organizations are enlisted in a state-wide movement and 

 campaign for rural progress. We have, in fact, a federation of thirty of 

 the agricultural organizations in our state getting behind all desirable 

 movements at the present time, and ''squelching" others not so desirable. 

 This getting together is absolutely necessary, else waste of energy, money, 

 and misunderstanding, jealousies, cross-purposes, and lack of harmony 

 will evidently result. We do all this, too, without sacrificing any educa- 

 tional ideals, or interference with the academic work of our institution. 



I realize perhaps more than you do that I have given a very feeble and 

 inadequate description of our work, but it would have taken hours to tell 

 you all. This whole movement with us is the social service spirit applied 

 to rural work. 



You may raise this question : Why should all of this effort he made in 

 behalf of agriculture at the present time? There are many good reasons. 

 It is no longer a pretty saying — a mere platitude — that agriculture is the 

 foundation of our national prosperity. The fact is being driven home 

 to us on every side by the acuteness of economic conditions. 



We now consume 91 per cent of our wheat. 



We now consume 98 per cent of our corn. 



The decline in our exports of cattle in the last five years has been 

 75 per cent. 



The increase in importation of cattle has been 2000 per cent in six 

 years. 



Our average yield of wheat per acre is 14 bushels; the farm average 

 of western Europe is 32 bushels. This comparison is not at all to our 

 credit. 



This nation is facing the question of what we are going to eat in 1963, 

 when our population reaches 200,000,000 as it undoubtedly will, 



