THE PRESIDENT TO THE FARMERS OF AMERICA. 



fExtracts from President Wilson's message to the Farmers' Conference at Urbana, 111., January 31, 1918,3 



The forces that fight for freedom, the freedom of men all over the world as well as 

 our own, depend upon us in an extraordinaiy and unexpected degree for sustenance, 

 for the supply of the materials by which men are to live and to fight, and it will be 

 our glory when the war is over that we have supplied those materials and supplied 

 them abundantly, and it will be all the more glory because in supplying them we 

 have made our supreme effort and sacrifice. 



In the field of agiiculture we ha^-e agencies and instrumentalities, fortunately, 

 such as no other government in the world can show. The Department of Agriculture 

 is undoubtedly the gi'eatest practical and scientific agricultural organization in the 

 world. Its total annual budget of §46,000,000 has been increased during the last 

 foiu- years more than 72 per cent. It has a staff of 18,000, including a large niunber 

 of highly trained experts, and alongside of it stand the unique land-grant colleges, 

 which are without example elsewhere, and the 69 State and Federal experiment 

 stations. These colleges and experiment stations have a total endowment of plant 

 and equipment of $172,000,000 and an income of more than §35,000,000, with 10,271 

 teachers, a resident student body of 125,000, and a vast additional munber receiving 

 instruction at their homes. County agents, joint officers of the Department of Agri- 

 culture and of the colleges, are everywhere cooperating with the farmers and assist- 

 ing them. The number of extension workers under the Smith-Lever Act and under 

 the recent emergency legislation has grown to 5,500 men and women working regu- 

 larly in the various communities and taking to the farmer the latest scientific and 

 practical information. Alongside these great public agencies stand the very effective 

 voluntaiy organizations among the farmers themselves, which are more and more 

 learning the best methods of cooperation and the best methods of putting to practical 

 use the assistance deri^-ed from governmental soiu"ces. The banking legislation of 

 the last two or three years has given the farmers access to the great lendable capital 

 of the country, and it has become the duty both of the men in charge of the Federal- 

 reserve banking system and of the farm-loan banking system to see to it that the 

 farmers obtain the credit, both short term and long term, to which they are entitled 

 not only, but which it is imperatively necessary should be extended to them if the 

 present tasks of the country are to be adequately performed. Both by direct 

 purchase of nitrates and by the establishment of plants to. produce nitrates, the 

 Government is doing its utmost to assist in the problem of fertilization. The 

 Department of Agriculture and other agencies are actively assisting the fanners to 

 locate, safeguard, and secure at cost au adequate supply of sound seed. 



The farmers of this country are as efficient as any other farmers in the world. 

 They do not produce more per acre than the farmers in Europe. It is not necessary 

 that they should do so. It would perhaps be bad economy for them to attempt it. 

 But they do produce by two to three or four times more per man, per unit of labor 

 and capital, than the fanners of any European country. They are more alert and 

 use more labor-saving devices than any other farmers in the world. And their 

 response to the demands of the present emergency has been in every way remark- 

 able. Last spring [1917] their planting exceeded by 12,000,000 acres the largest 

 planting of any previous year, and the yields from the crops were lecord-breaking 

 yields. In the fall of 1917 a wheat acreage of 42,170,000 was planted, which was 

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