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State, and this, my Alma Mater. It is not mere sentiment to 

 declare that he who is not conscious of an abiding kinship with 

 that land on whose soil eight generations of ancestors have 

 lived during more than two and a half centuries, has lost a 

 precious birthright, and is an Ishmaelite indeed. Nor is he less 

 degenerate who forgets his indebtedness to that institution 

 where he attained a larger vision of life and its possibilities. 



I am also moved by the thought that at this time, when we 

 celebrate a recognized achievement, I am permitted to meet 

 with friends, who labored with prophetic zeal during years of 

 severe trial and discouragement in the organization and devel- 

 opment of new agencies that now occupy a conspicuous place 

 in conserving and promoting our national well being. Those 

 of you who have confronted popular misunderstanding, be- 

 seeched legislatures and campaigned the State, in the interests 

 of a more enlightened agriculture, may be pardoned a feeling 

 of exultation, now that even the great universities of the land 

 are eagerly announcing their devotion to the cause of agricul- 

 tural education, and the captains of industry are insisting that 

 the preservation of our national strength must be accomplished 

 through a widespread education of the rural people in the 

 facts and principles of a rational farm practice. It is not too 

 much to claim that a readjustment of educational means and 

 methods, the essentials of which were embodied in the Morrill 

 Act of 1862, has been slowly but surely preparing the people 

 of this nation to understand, and effectively meet, the great 

 conservation problems that are now forced on us through the 

 profligate waste of our vast resources of soil, forest and min- 

 erals. It seems to me that Dr. Fernald and those who were 

 his co-workers more than forty years ago in initiating an epoch- 

 making type of education should now regard with much satis- 

 faction the fruit of their labors. 



But our interest today is in a single institution and a single 

 state rather than in questions of national scope. It is twenty- 

 five years ago last Thursday since Governor Robie signed the 

 act that created the Maine Fertilizer Control and Agricultural 

 Experiment Station. I had the honor, as you know, to be the 

 first director of the station, the fourteenth of its kind to be 

 established in the United States. My connection with the insti- 

 tution, which covered a period of eleven years, was initiated by 

 a telegram received by me at State College, Pennsylvania, in 



