DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



241 



personally, collectively and nationally interested in manufacture, for 

 Switzerland is a manufacturing nation. Similarly, we would expect the 

 citizen of England to be interested in commerce. With us it is different — 

 since practically every person present lives in a good part of one of the 

 best agricultural states, in the greatest agricultural nation on the face of 

 the earth, it is so apparent, since we respect an acre of land only bceause 

 of the soil fertility which it contains, that "our life's work" is a three-step 

 process of transformation, transforming soil fertility into plant life, plant 

 life thus made into animal life and animal life thus made into human con- 

 veniences. 



"Illustrations" 



Happy the thought that today you can see "bossie" plucking the blade 

 of grass from yonder hillside. Tonight you can milk the same substance 

 into the pail. Tomorrow you partake of the same in the form of food. 

 Another day's exercise, and another night's rest, and you can transform 

 into thought the word — yes, if you were a Walt Mason, into verse — the 

 same substance that this moment is tied up in the blade of grass, for 

 which "bossie" is searching, and that a few brief hours before has lain 

 beneath "bossie's" feet in the form of soil fertility yet unused. 



Hence, the necessity for college extension service! 



MR. BAINER: 



Now, there is one thing perhaps that Mr. Crabtree did not tell you 

 and that was the number of people they have in the Extension Department 

 there doing work over the state, which is 41. I want to say that I come 

 in contact with a number of the people, all doing this work, and in con- 

 nection with this work, I do not know of any other institution that has 

 as successful a department in extension work as the Kansas State Agri- 

 cultural College has today. 



An excellent address has been prepared by Joseph Hirsch, of Corpus 

 Christi, Texas, a member of the Agricultural Commission of the American 

 Bankers Association. Since he is unable to be present his address will be 

 read. 



Address of Mr. Hirsch 

 PRACTICAL COOPERATION BETWEEN BANKERS AND FARMERS— 



THE TEXAS PLAN 



The great interest that has been aroused in the better farming move- 

 ment among the bankers of America is now so generally known that it 

 is hardly necessary to comment upon it, except briefly, at this time. The 

 appointment of Agricultural Committees by several of the State Banking 

 Associations began as early as 1909, and in 1911 there was held at Min- 

 neapolis the first Conference of Bankers Committees on Agriculture. This 

 Conference was attended by the representatives of seven states. At this 

 writing forty State Bankers Associations have regular Agricultural Com- 

 mittees, and the interest aroused and the good work accomplished has 

 grown to such an extent that last year, for the first time, the American 



