THE DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



89 



name was given it, I believe, by Alexander the Great in honor of his 

 sister, who was married to one of his generals. Alexander's birthplace 

 was some 25 miles to the west of the city, and the birthplace of Aristotle 

 was about the same distance to the east. So we are on historic ground. 

 And if climatic conditions were the same in those days, we have had a 

 long line of predecessors to battle with semi-arid conditions which have 

 at least pervailed here for the last two years. 



Crude Farm Implements. 



"Agricultural conditions are seemingly much the same in the primi- 

 tiveness of the implements used that they were in the time of Abraham 

 The same brush-handled sharp-pointed shovel plow scratcnes the ground, 

 and the brush-wood harrow levels it. The farmers congregate in vil- 

 lages and often times are obliged to travel miles to reach their fields. 

 They would be afraid to live on their farm fields as we do. Often times 

 their village dwelling places would hardly be considered fit barns for our 

 stock. 



Macedonian Farmers. 



"The farmer and farming is looked down upon because of the un- 

 toward condition under which he lives, and quite often he is obliged to 

 borrow money, (or rather the grain which makes their bread) of the 

 usurer at 50 i:er cent to 200 per cent interest, in order to get over from 

 harvest to harvest, thus mortgag'ng the future harvest for tiie winter's 

 supply of bread for the family. So you see that in many parts of Mace- 

 donia, and for that matter, of the whole country, the conditions of the 

 tillers of the soil are pitiable in the extreme and the best of all call- 

 ings has fallen into the greatest disrepute. 



Uplift for farmers. 



"Tt was this sad condit'on of the farmers and their children that has 

 led us to establish an agricultural and Industrial school here which has 

 for its object the teaching of not only the heart and the head, but also 

 the hand. We believe that the farmers of America will be interested in 

 our efforts to uplift the farmers of Macedonia. Our instiLut:on is' an 

 American institution, incorporated under the laws of the state of New 

 York. I myself however, am from Ohio, and received my first lessons 

 in farming in that state. The conditions in Ohio, however, 1 found were 

 far different from the conditions here. 



Precipitation. 



"On October 30, 1907, I began meteorological observations and from 

 October 29, 1907, to October 29, 1908, I found the rainfall to be 12.34 

 inches, the largest portions of which fell from November 1 to April 3, 

 The amount which fell in that time was 9.32 3-4 inches and from April 3, 

 to November 4, was only 3.01 1/^ inches. These observations seemed to me 

 to bring this region which lies to the south of the Rhodope range of 

 mountains in the Balkan Peninsula largely into the regions which are 

 called semi-arid. 



