may be avoided by better farming and a comprehensive view of the 

 situation by those who deal in big things, whether carrying commerce, 

 manufacturing, or finance. If the America we know to-day is to 

 continue with its opportunities for all classes, high prices for skill 

 and labor, home ownership for every industrious man, education for 

 every child, and easily acquired competence for every frugal, indus- 

 trious family, we must look to the soil and its power of production. 

 Other nations prosper by commerce and manufacturing, but their 

 working classes are not as comfortable as ours. 



"Our people are not grouped to advantage. Too many grew 

 crops during the last half of the nineteenth century. Farming was 

 a poor business during that period, and did not invite people. The 

 abundance of meats arid grains and the low prices for them gave little 

 encouragement for the young farmer to devote his life to agriculture. 

 He sought other occupations, and generally prospered, as the industry 

 and strict economy necessary to living on the farm had prepared 

 him for success in other vocations where life is less strenuous. 



"People make an ado about eight or ten hours a day. Farmers 

 who prospered in the past worked sixteen hours a day. I have done 

 it myself, day after day, year after year. 



"The farm went to the renter and poverty, because the renter 

 rarely had the capital to maintain conditions that would keep up fer- 

 tility, which includes pastures, grazing and fattening animals, legumes, 

 rotations, care of and use of fertilizers, purchases of mill feed, drain- 

 ing, machinery and periodicals for mental growth. The renter grew 

 grain to sell, hay to sell; anything to sell. He had a short lease 

 and no inducement to improve. Whoever rents land to be handled 

 this way abandons his farm then and there. It becomes poorer every 

 year, until it ceases to yield profitably. 



"There are owners who manage as the average renter manages 

 and some owners sink below the renter, as they are too shiftless to 

 leave the farm and do other work. There are many good farms in 

 all the older States, but they do not teach by precept or demonstra- 

 tion, and their wisdom dies with them. This class of farmers keeps 

 up fertility. They are they whom we employ in the Southern States 

 to direct and advise in our demonstration work. 



"Every State should organize to conserve the fertility of its soils. 

 The Department of Agriculture would gladly co-operate with all of 

 them. This Department has corps of scientists that could be made 

 useful in this regard. There is no kind of conservation that com- 

 pares at all in importance with soil conservation, while all are im- 

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