146 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



or of today, he must understand that the animal cannot work 

 miracles; cannot transform flesh formers into fat, albuminoids 

 into carbohydrates, nor the reverse. He must answer the prayer 

 of the animal which might well be expressed in the words of 

 Agur the son of Jakeh : ''Feed me with the food that is needful 

 for me;" that is, food naturally adapted to the object that you 

 have in view in feeding. 



All this will involve a much greater intelligence in the twen- 

 tieth century farmer thhan that required of his nineteenth century 

 brother. Fortunately the means for securing the desired informa- 

 tioh are available to the man who wishes to avail himself of them, 

 so far as books, colleges, experiment stations and agricultural pa- 

 pers can give it. All these are of no avail, however, until there is 

 an appetite created in the mind of the farmer for them. They that 

 are whole, that is, think themselves whole, need no physician ; nor 

 would a physician do them any possible good. It is those that are 

 sick and feel themselves sick, that will benefit by the opportuni- 

 ties for agricultural education. 



It is perhaps fortunate that the farmers of the nineteenth 

 century are not living in the twentieth, for it is not easy to teach 

 an old dog new tricks; and therefore the hope of agriculture 

 must ever lie in the young men and young women growing up on 

 the farm ; not the hope of agriculture merely, but the hope of the 

 nation. For, say what you will about the educational dis advan- 

 tages of the farm, it is after all the man with the farm education, 

 the education that the farm gives him, that takes the lead in 

 transacting the .^^reat business of the world. This, however, 

 furnishes us no excuse for allowing -the common schools in all 

 these states to be so poorly equipped with teachers, so poorly 

 attended by pupils, and so neglected as they are by farmers, 

 whose children in the very nature of things receive but little bet- 

 ter education than that which the country school gives them. 



Some may ask: What about commercial fertilizers in the 

 twentieth century ? They will no doubt be used, as they are used 

 now, in portions of our great country where the soil robber 

 has done his work. Let us hope that they will be used more in- 

 telligently, with the specific object of supplying a known want 



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