16 CHAUi'MAX, COMMITTKK (J\ LA.\DS, COMMISSIOX df <'()\ si: 1,'V \'l lO\ 



2 GEORGE v., A. 1912 



by a government and try to make it pay. It would be a pretty bard ibing to do. Tbe 

 employees would be paid by salary under the government; and the research side, the 

 new experiment side, perhaps even the show appearance side, would outweigh the 

 effort to make it pay. The Experimental Farms for research are properly owned and 

 maintained by the government. The illustration farm for profits is properly owned 

 and managed by the individual farmer in the locality. The neighbours would see 

 and understand that kind of farming; and if they meet on such a farm once a month 

 and talk over matters with the farmer who is their natural leader they will share 

 the benefits. They will not take the management out of his control. He owns the 

 farm, he farms it for his own profit, he gets the benefit of the associated criticism, 

 and counsel of his neighbours. He should get one thing more. We are making 

 arrangements whereby he will receive visits two or three time a year from two of 

 the best experts on farming in the whole country. These will be visits for investiga- 

 tion, for counsel, for advice, for making plans, all within the means and the desire 

 of the farmer himself. 



EXPERT COUNSELLORS TO CO-OPERATE WITH FARMERS. 



Further, if when those two experts go to his farm they could meet also once or 

 twice a year the other ."50 or 40 farmers associated in the movement and talk over 

 with them the conditions and needs of the locality, every one would get something in 

 the way of helpful information. The illustration farmer would not get money, but 

 he would get encouragement and such inspiration to work better that he would make 

 more money. Four things such a farm ought to do. It should illustrate the best 

 system of rotation of crops for that locality ; it should illustrate the use of selecte^l 

 seed grain suitable for the locality; it should illustrate the results from sowing a 

 suitable quantity of clover seed with the grain crops; and it should illustrate after 

 harvest cultivations in keeping with what is practicable in the locality. Out of the 

 joint judgment of the illustration farmer and these two experts, plans would be 

 evolved that would prove increasingly profitable. It may be asked, how would such a 

 farmer obtain the selected seed suitable for his farm? That is what the Canadian 

 Seed Growers' Association is for. Through it he could obtain pure seed from selected 

 grain, which Avould provide object lessons for the whole locality. For a year or two 

 the Committee on Lands, in following up its investigations, might even arrange for 

 him to exchange his feed grain, bushel for bushel, for seed grain until he got into 

 the use of the right strains. In a similar manner it might be arranged for him to 

 obtain the additional quantity of clover seed required to sow at least four-fifths of the 

 area in grain crops at the rate of 12 lbs. of clover seed per acre. By some such 

 means there could be many local illustration farms which were yielding satisfactory 

 profits and on which weeds were being kept down and fertility was being kept up. 



I have every reason to believe from what we learned from the survey that 30 or 

 40 of these farmers whose farms have been surveyed would jump at the chance of 

 co-operating towards accomplishing these benefits for their localities, not for any 

 money, but for the satisfaction of being associated with their neighbours to help one 

 another in that way. If something of this sort can be brought about, look at the 

 value of the information we of the Committee on Lands would have for this Commit- 

 tee in a few years in the records of the progress and in the records of the balance 

 .•^heets of the illustration farms. That is part of what I hope the Committee on Lands 

 will contribute as its share, through these surveys, towards the solution of these big 

 and difii'^ult problems for the advancement of agriculture. 



BETTER FARMING, BETTER BtSINESS, BETTER LIVING. 



I do not come before this Committee either to ask for its endorsation or for its 

 a»ssistance to obtain grants of mone.y. I thought it proper that the Chairman of the 

 Committee on Lands of the Commission of Conservation should come before the Com- 



