30 BULLETIN 728, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



THE FAKMEKS 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 farmers 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 remarkable. Last spring 

 their planting exceeded by 12,000,000 acres the largest plant- 

 ing of any previous year, and the yields from the crops were 

 record-breaking yields. In the fall of 1917 a wheat acreage of 

 42,170,000 was planted, which was 1,000,000 larger than for 

 any preceding year* 3,000,000 greater than the next largest, 

 and 7,000,000 greater than the preceding five-year average. 



But I ought to say to you that it is not only necessary that 

 these achievements should be repeated, but that they should be 

 exceeded. I know what this advice involves. It involves not 

 only labor but sacrifice, the painstaking application of every bit 

 of scientific knowledge and every tested practice that is avail- 

 able. It means the utmost economy, even to the point where 

 the pinch comes. It means the kind of concentration and 

 self-sacrifice which is involved in the field of battle itself, where 

 the object always looms greater than the individual. And yet 

 the Government will help, and help in every way th^l is pos- 

 sible. — From President Wilson's Message to the Farmers' Con- 

 ference at Urbana, IU. } January 31, , 1918" 



