FORTY-THIRD ANNUAL CONVENTION 197 



two or three times from the same herd and the same animals. 

 It was not an official test of the production from these cows, but 

 one man had a sale and he came to me after the sale and made 

 the statement that he believed that when he was able to say 

 to the men who were bidding upon a cow that she had been 

 tested and that her butterfat production was 4.1 per cent, that 

 cow sold for $10 more than he would have been able to sell her 

 for had he not been able to make that statement. That is a 

 small matter, but it is a step in the right direction. It might 

 be the means of your getting from the sale of some of your 

 poorer cows, the money necessary for conducting an association 

 test. 



For the few minutes that I have, I want to speak to you on 

 the production of bigger and better crops, and this evening I 

 shall speak on the subject of alfalfa, and if I am the last speaker 

 on the program I shall be willing to stay here as long as you 

 want to stay, providing I can get away on the 9 145 train. 



There are three groups of factors that work towards the 

 production of bigger and better crops. One set of factors is 

 absolutely beyond the control of the farmer, and he should not 

 spend much time and worry concerning those factors : moisture 

 and temperature conditions. The average farmer has all that 

 he can do to take care of the things over which he has control 

 and should let other things alone. 



Now, another set of factors is that set over w^hich the 

 farmer has partial control, and the third over which he has abso- 

 lute control. Now what are the things over which the farmer 

 has partial control, and can he manipulate these conditions in 

 such a way as to make it profitable to him? One of these fac- 

 tors partially under the control of the farmer is the control of 

 the plant diseases to our common farm crops. Can you realize 

 that the average loss due to plant diseases alone in the United 

 States is more than 800 millions of dollars per year? I will 

 give you some figures : the losses due to Bunt, or Stinking Smut, 

 alone are 12 million dollars. The smut of the oat causes a loss 

 of 20 million dollars; the blight of the potato, 36 millions; the 

 smut of the corn 36 millions; the rust of wheat 67 millions. 

 This gives us the annual loss caused by a few of the plant dis- 

 eases, but the total annual loss amounts to more than 800 mil- 



