portant. We are late in beginning; but high prices are impelling 

 and insistent from every standpoint. 



"Some political economists tell us that boys leave the farm be- 

 cause the land values are so high ; but land values east of the Alle- 

 ghenies have gone down because the boys left the farms and renters 

 without capital got possession to grow grain and hay for sale. 



"Let me call your attention to some work that the Department 

 is doing that we can commend to the Eastern States. The boll weevil 

 came to the South. The growing of cotton is an exceedingly interest- 

 ing industry a necessary one, especially, to the South, and not only 

 to them, but to the whole country. Congress intervened to produce 

 cotton in defiance of the boll weevil or to help those- people grow 

 crops in place of cotton where the boll weevil could not be subdued. 

 We organized the whole Southern country south of the Ohio River 

 all those Southern States. We have had four hundred men Southern 

 men good farmers, in that country, who are teaching by demonstra- 

 tion their neighbors who are not good farmers. We are working 

 under the authority of Congress. We conducted last year 30,000 

 demonstrations on 30,000 Southern farms. (Applause). That is a 

 hint for you, good, people. Get 30,000 demonstrations on 30,000 farms 

 up here, and you will strike twelve very quickly with regard to the 

 products in these grand States east of the Allegheny Mountains and 

 west of Cape Cod. 



"We got 12,500 boys under sixteen years old each to grow an 

 acre of corn. The object was to reach the father through the child, 

 and we reached them. Their fathers never grew as much corn. Some 

 of these boys grew 160 bushels of corn to the acre. Next year we 

 will have about three times that number growing each an acre of 

 corn. It might be humorous to know what we did with the boy who 

 grew the most corn. It would be laughable if I told you. The boy 

 who grew the most corn in his own State was promised privately 

 by our instructors down there a free trip to the City of Washington 

 to see the President of the United States, the Capitol, and those 

 great Congressmen and Legislators. The humorous thing is that I 

 gave each of those boys a diploma. They sold the corn those four 

 boys for enough to put them through an agricultural college. Their 

 fathers never grew as much corn. in their history. 



"Now then, corn is dear is dear now. The next step we built 

 on top of that was to issue a bulletin telling them how to grow 

 hogs, so that they would be independent of the Northwest with regard 

 to their meat, and they are at that now. 



10 



