THE DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 123 



Fifth Session, Wednesday Afternoon. 



The Hon. J. H. McColl, presiding. 



Mr, A. J. McCane, of the South Dakota Experiment Station, addressed 

 the Congress as follows: 



"It is with pleasure that I greet this audience whom I know are 

 intensely interested in the industry that is the foundation of all wealth. 

 Mr. Chairman, I think that you have taken snap judgment on me, how- 

 ever. I was not aware that I was to make an address. Now if I had been 

 prepared and been in the congress of the United States this would be 

 called my maiden effort and I think that you will understand before I 

 am through that I have made an effort, whether successful or not. It is 

 with double pleasure that I greet you for the reason that I believe you 

 represent the brains and brawn of the civilization of the central west. 



I am not saying this to compliment you beyond what you deserve, 

 because you are trying to devise some better methods by and through 

 which you can help the farmers of the United States. Now, I know that 

 you are representatives of all the people of every class of the industry 

 in the world. For this reason you meet here unselfishly; you meet here 

 for the purpose of preparing yourselves the better to enter into the 

 industry and avocation that you have chosen for your lives; the mastery 

 of better methods of agriculture and this is certainly one of the most 

 important studies of today. We fvnd every other industry devising means 

 and resorting to inventions in labor saving machinery, so that they can 



Business Methods. 



economize in the product'on of everything that the farmers have to buy 

 and consume, and we certainly ought to sit up and take notice and en- 

 deavor to devise means whereby we can produce at a better profit to 

 ourselves the things that the industries of the world have to purchase 

 from us and are dependent upon. 



"We know that if we permit agriculture to stand still and do not 

 keep to the forefront with new methods, that every other industry must 

 in proportion sway and decay, because they all rest upon this one foun- 

 dation. Some of you can remember well when the state of Pennsylvania 

 held the banner as the wheat growing state of the Union. You probably 

 studied the same physical geography that I did and you can remember 

 how proud we were to recite the lesson, those of us who belonged to 

 the Keystone state, and you can remember how our pride was crushed 

 when we had to surrender our honors to the state of Illinois, and Illinois 

 in turn to Minnesota, and Minnesota to the Dakotas, and you will re 

 member Ohio was the banner corn state of the United States and had to 

 surrender her honors to Illinois, and Illinois to Iowa, and Iowa in her 

 turn to Nebraska and Kansas, who are now vyi-ng for supremacy with 

 South Dakota, who is not a slow competitor in the race. At the time 

 that we were studying the geography that gave Pennsylvania the banner, 



