88 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



have happened : that men, both old and young men, men and 

 women, have found out that about the biggest thing in this coun- 

 try is its agriculture; the best place to be is on the land, that is 

 the first thing. It would surprise you the extent to which the 

 people in the cities are turning their eyes toward the land. It 

 commenced about four years ago. The second thing is this, that 

 young men are beginning to find that agriculture is a science as 

 well as an art. Now science must be learned at college. The 

 art of agriculture does not develop itself. How many years and 

 years have farmers cultivated clover without finding out those 

 little nodules that are there; a man in Europe discovered that. 



A student comes to the college to learn the reason, the why, 

 and not the how ; you get that in practice. You come to learn 

 how to become skillful in the Babcock test. You want to learn 

 the cheapest sources of feed ; how to put it on the market in the 

 right way. Learn to get information quickly. The department 

 in agriculture will have information at its fingers' ends that they 

 have in Italy, Sweden or any other country and you never know 

 how valuable a little bit of information is. 



Let me tell you what I learned today. I had not seen Mr. 

 Haliburt for a number of months, but you know that one of the 

 most important suits at law is on now in Chicago having to do 

 with the water rights of a private company in the Desplaines 

 river. This question turned upon a historic point and only three 

 men know about it. Now for instance you want to know a cer- 

 tain thing in Elgin and there are not more than six men who 

 know it. It is the business of the College of Agriculture to find 

 out these things. 



If you build up a strong faculty you will make a large insti- 

 tution, but if you do not you will be in the same shape so many 

 of the churches are in now. The churches are asking us to an- 

 swer the question why is it that the country churches are going 

 down ; why ? We cannot say a single word because we have no 

 money to hire the man that could do that thing. We saw it com- 

 ing three or four years ago, but we had no money. If you are 

 going to do this thing in a business like way we must have a man 

 to take care of it. 



