Some Things Applied Science Has 
Done For The Farmer. 
BY A. ALEXANDER, F.S.Sc. 
Read before the Hamilton Association November 20th, 1909. 
OT so many years ago, to be a farmer was to be a 
N peasant,and the occupation of farming was considered 
that of a man who had about as much knowledge in 
his boots as in his brains. But the day when a farmer 
might be regarded as a mere peasant is forever past, for a 
new spirit is abroad on the farm, and I believe this new 
spirit is destined in thirty or forty years to transform rural 
workers into a professional class drawing incomes at least 
double their present ones. 
You have all heard of the ‘‘ Abandoned Farms of New 
England.’’ I understand that these farms a short time ago 
could be had for from $20 to $40 per acre, while, if you 
travel to the West, or what our neighbors call the Middle 
West, you will find land averaging in value all the way from 
$150 to $300 an acre. This difference in values, Kast and 
West, at first sight seems preposterous, for we should re- 
member that the East is near the market with land “‘ that 
cannot be given away,’’ while the West, thousands of miles 
from its markets, holds its lands at prices unheard of in the 
records of this continent. What is the explanation? The 
usual answer, I suppose, would be that the lands in the 
East are exhausted, while those of the West are unexhausted. 
But if this answer is looked into you will find it is simple 
vonsense. About twenty-five or thirty years ago these 
lands in the West, say Wisconsin avd other States, were 
literally loaded down with mortgages—swamped. About 
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