DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



7 



Now that we lay down our responsibility, we feel we have discharged 

 our duty at least reasonably well. 



It is customary on these occasions to have some fitting words of wel- 

 come from officials and I am now going to introduce to you one who will 

 speak to you of the state of Kansas and speak to you well. I have the 

 honor to introduce the Governor of Kansas, George H. Hodges. 



GOVERNOR HODGES: 



Mr. Chairman, Mr. President, Doctor Waters and Members of this 

 Congress here assembled: I am gratified to be here this morning and as 

 executive of thisi great commonwealth of ours, welcome you delegates to 

 the greatest Congress of the world. Agriculture is the greatest industry of 

 mankind, and you men and women here this morning from foreign lands 

 and from our own home land, we are pleased to be with you and to talk 

 to you just a few moments. We feel assured that great good will come 

 out of our coming and that we will all go home with renewed energy given 

 to cultivating the soil in a scientific manner. 



We are proud of Kansas and it is peculiarly and particularly fitting 

 that this great Agricultural Congress should meet in this queen city of 

 Kansas and in the greatest agricultural district of the world. (Applause). 

 We boast of our natural resources, we boast of our livestock, we are proud 

 of the citizenship and we are proud of the spirit that makes Kansas great. 

 We wish, in Kansas, with our 85,000 square miles, to have more men come 

 to us — men of genius who wave a magic wand and transform our land. We 

 are proud of our dormant natural resources, but better than that, we have 

 the great agricultural interests of our state that mean more to us than any 

 and all other activities combined. 



Great good will come out of this Congress. Why? Because you go 

 home pregnant with facts and ideas and information given to farming and 

 farming scientifically. Over in our county we have a local painter, and 

 driving along the other day I saw his sign and it is such an epigram 

 that it has rung in my mind ever since — "I mix my paint with brains" — 

 and so here in this splendid Congress, we begin to realize that farming, 

 to accomplish the greatest results, must be done scientifically and that we 

 must mix some of our grey matter with the soil. 



In our good state and in your good Congress, we commend and con- 

 gratulate ourselves that we have the president, as your president, of the 

 greatest agricultural college in the world, our Manhattan Agricultural Col- 

 lege (Applause), Doctor Waters, who is one of the greatest agriculturists in 

 the world. That college over there is teaching our young men to grow 

 30 bushels of wheat where only 20 grew before, and to put 100 to 150 pounds 

 of meat more on a steer. They are mixing farming with brains over at 

 that agricultural college, and so you meet the people who are in touch 

 with and realize the possibilities of this great state of ours. 



You good men and women, some of you, came to Kansas years and 

 years ago, a great American desert, and you planted the seed that brought 

 forth the fruit and enabled a hardy race of men and women to transform it 

 from an American desert to a state great in wealth. 



