130 



SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE 



for some reason, then compost with sufficient horse 

 manure to ensure thorough heating. 



In conclusion summarizing the situation, we have in 

 the European Corn Borer an insect capable of inflict- 

 ing great damage to the corn crop of Canada and which 

 is alread.y established in a large area and doing marked 

 and measurable injury in parts of the area most heavi- 

 ly infested. It is likely to spread over the whole eorn- 

 growing districts, at least, unless very definite and 

 prompt measures are taken for its control. Among 

 these measures are the Federal Corn Quarantine, the 

 vigorous investiirations being carried on bv officers of 



March, 1921. 



the Dominion Entomological Branch, the Provincial 

 Department of Agriculture through the Provincial En- 

 tomologist at Guelph, and lastly the field practice by 

 the growers based upon these investigations. This 

 field practice involves as complete a destruction of the 

 corn crop refuse as is practicable under farm condi- 

 tions — low cutting, feeding the edible parts, and the 

 complete destruction of the balance by burning before 

 spring of the following year. It is only by this united 

 front that rapid spread and serious animal loss from 

 the pest can be avoided. 



IMPORTANT NOTICE. — We are advised, too late for type correction, of the following changes in the foregoing 

 article: (1) stubble infestation in the Hatheway flint corn on chart and in text, should read 29.18'. instead of 

 £7%. (2) loss in weight from grain not devoured, due to infestation of flint corn stalks, on chart and in text, 

 should read 41/2% instead of 71/2. 



The Mission of the 



An address bj- President 

 Re-union. Toront 



This is an exceedingly important occasion. It is im- 

 portant becau.se it is the first provincial gathering of 

 the Alumni and it is also important because it has been 

 so seriously taken into account and has drawn together 

 so many repi-eseutative graduates and friends of the 

 Ontario Agricultural College. 



An agricultural college, it is not necessary to remark, 

 is a vocational college, which means that tho.se who enter 

 its doors and have the benefit of iu.struction from the 

 college are more or less, directly or indirectly, closely 

 or remclely, connected with agi-iculture. I have made a 

 rough survey of the occupations of the graduates from 

 the first year when men were graduated from the ins- 

 titution, and while I find nearly all occupations repre- 

 sented from agriculture to theology, nevertheless most 

 of these men are connected with agriculture. Some of 

 tiiem have a very distant and remote connection but 

 one ma.v define that connection variously, either that 

 they are working farmers or that they are working the 

 farniei-s. .Some of the graduates of the college have 

 found it nioi-e to their taste and liking to farm and some 

 have found it more to their taste and liking to farm tlie 

 fai-mers, but even those who are working the farmers 

 are as.sociated with agriculture. 



The question might well be asked, since this is a 

 toast to the Alma Mater, what this association ma.v do 

 for the college and for the jnirposes for which the col- 

 lege was instituted. I shall deal with that briefly be- 

 cause the answer is obvious. First of all, I think, you 

 should keep up your interest in the college and its work, 

 and the fact of your presence here tonight indicates 

 that you are keeping up tliat interest. Secondly, you 

 will agree that the Alumni of the college shoidd direct 

 and lead public opinion and i)ublic information respect- 

 ing the work of the college, because it is very easy for 

 one not connected with the college in any way to have 

 quite wrong opinions concerning its purpose. For ex- 

 ample, the commonl.v received opinion respecting tlie 

 purpose of the college would condemn a good many of 

 you in tiie occupations you are pursuing, in that \ou are 

 not actively engaged in farming. That opinion ought 

 to be corrected. The argument against that opinion is 

 that the public work throughout the Dominion, in the 

 Federal Department of Agriculture with all its 

 branches, in the Provincial Departments of Agriculture 

 with all their branches and in the work of the various 

 agricultural colleges, has created a demand for a cer- 

 tain type of training which the colleges have set them- 

 selves to fulfil, and in this they have been entireh- 



Agricultural College 



Re\'nolds at the 0. A. C. 



o, March 10, 1921. 

 justified. The supply of trained men has to come for- 

 ward in response to the demand and the institution is 

 there to meet that demand. 



I will deal for a few minutes with the question of the 

 mission of the agricultural college and of its alumni in 

 the various occupations that they may pursue. What is 

 the mission of the college? You may not agree with me 

 when I state the mission in these terms : the redem- 

 tion of Canadian agriculture from its disabilities and 

 penalties. A large order you say, because we are pretty 

 well aware that those disabilities and penalties are just 

 those factors which have deterred so manj- of you 

 from following actual farming, but if through the 

 efforts of the 0. A. C. and all of its Alumni, these 

 disabilities and penalties can be removed, then agri- 

 culture will be elevated to a higher plane. The 

 disabilities and peualtie.;; are sordidne,ss and iso- 

 lation, sordidness being largely, in my opinion, an 

 intellectual quality and isolation being a physical and 

 social quality. 



However it ihas been accomiilished, Canadian agri- 

 culture is not of the type of the European peasant agri- 

 culture. A short time ago a Belgian labor leader was 



. speaking, and he is reported to have said, ' ' The Euro- 



"pean farmer is a peasant, a small unit producer, who 

 uses \-ery little machuiery, who produces nearly all that 

 he needs and sells comparatively little from his farm, 

 so that the farm is a .self-contained unit. One result of 

 t.'iis is ihe present condition of Europe: a thriving coun- 

 tryside and starving cities." We have in Canada a 

 thriving country. There is, in small measure, unem- 

 plo.vment and distress, but "Starving cities" does not 

 describe the normal condition, and the reason is that 

 agriculture has been redeemed from sordidness and iso- 

 lation and has become industrialized and commer- 

 cialized. 



You may enjoy the hospitality of a typical Canadian 

 farm house, inspect its premises and equipment, and 

 you will fiiul on the table, instead of the provisions 

 being confined entirely or almost entirely to home pro- 

 ducts, that a considerable percentage of the food is 

 |)urchased fi-om very distant lands or from other parts 

 of the country and is in a manufactured form. On the 

 premises, with respect to the equipment, that farm is 

 highly industrialized in that it is well furnished with 

 machinery which has been purchased from the indus- 

 tries of the town. So that there is that remarkable dif- 

 ference between the Eurojiean peasant t.vpe of farmer 

 and tlie Canadian farmer : the Canadian farmer has ar- 



