No. 123.] REPORT OF COMMISSIONER. 15 



1918 timothy seed crop was short and the quality inferior, and 

 clover still continues high in price. 



European conditions, which have been a big factor in our 

 seed supply, must be thoroughly understood, and reports now 

 coming in show a still greater shortage of the better strains of 

 fine vegetables and certain farm seeds than last year. Many 

 of the large European seedsmen have lost a part of their 

 trained men, and it will be years before they are on a producing 

 basis comparable with pre-war conditions. Not only have 

 they lost their men, but through forced neglect many of the 

 better varieties have been lost, and they will take time to 

 build up again. All of this points to an added incentive for 

 our country to get into seed production, and become less de- 

 pendent upon Old World conditions. 



Farm Machinery. 



The Legislature of last year made available for this Depart- 

 ment the sum of $100,000 to purchase and operate farm ma- 

 chinery, to which the Governor and Council added an additional 

 amount of $8,000 to be used in order to get greater food 

 production. This measure was loyally supported by the Food 

 Administration, and while considerable opposition to it de- 

 veloped in some sections, on the whole the plan had general 

 support. 



A committee composed of members of the Food Administra- 

 tion, together with the Board of Agriculture, had general 

 oversight of the plan, and Mr. L. R. Smith of Hadley was 

 engaged to superintend actual operations. 



As the intent of this operation was the production of more 

 food, it was not always possible to assist the most deserving 

 farmers, but, rather, to use the machinery on the available and 

 easily worked land. While $100,000 seems a large sum of 

 money to expend on an experiment of this kind, and while it 

 would seem to accomplish a great deal, yet the total results of 

 this must not be looked for in actual acres plowed and har- 

 rowed, or in grain reaped and threshed, but, rather, in the 

 wider influence upon the farmers themselves. While we could 

 not by any means reach them all, yet there was a real feeling 

 that for the first time the State was taking enough interest in 



