ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 67 



of many lines of agricultural investigation. And we believe that such work 

 can be legitimately classed as "a boost for Ohio." We hope that we may at 

 least be considered as among the men behind the guns when the shots are fired. 

 In coming here to work with you for the upbuilding of agriculture I do 

 not come as an entire stranger, for almost the first soil work which I ever did, 

 aside from that on the farm, was to assist in the making of a soil survey of 

 Montgomery County, Ohio. Later, when as a member of the Bureau of Soils 

 of the United States Department of Agriculture, I was given charge of its classi- 

 fication and correlation work in the entire country, I had occasion to make 

 several visits to this state. Since taking up my work with the Experiment 

 Station last July I have been able to see something of every county in the State 

 except five, and it is our purpose to continue the work until we have taken a 

 complete inventory of our soil resources. What we have already seen is suffi- 

 cient to convince any one of the immense resources and agricultural possibilities 

 of this state. 



GREAT RESOURCES ALONE DO NOT MAKE A STATE GREAT. 



But did you ever consider, gentlemen, that the possession of great natural 

 resources in itself has never yet made a state rich and powerful? Were not all 

 of these advantages, which we now enjoy, here for thousands of years before 

 Columbus braved the winds and waves of the Atlantic to get a sight of a new 

 and better land? Prosperity and power come only when a people make use of 

 the advantages and resources which a beneficent Providence has placed before 

 them or underneath them. Their proper development, however, requires a great 

 deal of perseverance, of energy and of downright hard work. Yet, it requires 

 all of these and more. The energy must be expended along the proper channels 

 or no good may be accomplished. 



I was standing at the depot the other day waiting for a train and was very 

 much interested in watching a freight engine which was on the other track. It 

 was standing still, but from it was rushing with a great deal of noise a large vol- 

 ume of steam. A little later I saw the engineer take hold of the throttle, give it 

 two or three light pulls, the wheels began to revolve, the engine moved down the 

 track, carrying with it a long line of heavily laden cars. Apparently no more 

 energy was being expended than before. Why the difference? Because the 

 trained hand of the engineer had directed the energy into the channels where 

 it would produce work instead of going to waste. 



OBJECT OF * AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS. 



Only a few years ago the commercial world was startled by the announce- 

 ment that one of our great corporations was to pay its manager a salary of a 

 million dollars a year. In agriculture, as well as other lines of business, the 

 value of trained direction is being appreciated more and more every year. The 

 recognition of this principle led to the organization of a national Department 

 of Agriculture, of State Departments of Agriculture, of State Agricultural Col- 

 leges and Experiment Stations and various other institutions, the object of which 

 is to find out and advise the farmer as to the lines along which his energy can 

 be most profitably expended; to help him determine, among other things, how 

 best to use and not abuse our most valuable resource, the soil. 



A KNOWLEDGE OF THE SOIL NECESSARY. 



Since all soils are not alike, are not adapted to the same kind or va- 

 riety of crop, do not require the same kind of fertilization or cultural treat- 

 ment, as will be brought out more clearly later, these organizations have been 



