X BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



they are most needed and best fitted. We need these people 

 on our farms already developed, and also to take up and 

 utilize our now idle farm lands. There seems to be no agency 

 noAV in existence to give our immigrants any idea of the 

 actual agricultural conditions. As a rule, immigrants are 

 not able to go out and buy farms at once, nor would it be 

 wise for them to do so. It would accordingly be the duty of 

 the proposed bureau to see that desirable men were found 

 places on good farms where they could spend a few years in 

 learning our ways and the local conditions of soil, climate 

 and markets that must be met to insure success. The immi- 

 grant, however, is not the only important factor in the prob- 

 lem. One thing must not be lost sight of in the whole great 

 question, and that is the great desirability of turning many 

 of our young people toward the farms of the State and, while 

 so doing, of giving them an education which will fit them to 

 carry on successful agriculture. 



One thing to which I especially wish to call attention is 

 the necessity not only of more fully conserving our soil fer- 

 tility, but of practicing better methods of handling all the 

 ingredients which go to build up our soils. The members 

 of the American commission in Europe were much impressed 

 by the way in which all manures and farm refuse were saved. 

 The cement-lined manure pit, and the carefully protected 

 compost heap, were considered as necessary on each farm as 

 the farm buildings themselves, while with us the tendency is 

 to stack the manure outside of the buildings on the ground, 

 and far too often on a side hill where the best parts of the 

 manure run away with the spring rains. This problem is 

 becoming more acute as time goes on, and the sooner we 

 realize that here lies the vital problem in the future of our 

 agriculture, just so much sooner will we give our best at- 

 tention to its solution. 



The Year's Crops. 

 The past season in. our State has been, from an agricul- 

 tural standpoint, the most varied for many years. Some 

 crops have paid very well while others have been almost a 

 failure, and this goes to prove that, taking one year with 



