334 
the welfare clause of the Constitution to authorize the expendi- 
ture of money for improvement in agTicultural education, and 
leave to the States and to private enterprise general and other 
vocational education. The attitude of the Government in all 
this matter must be merely advisory. It owns no land of suffi- 
cient importance to justify its maintenance of so large a depart- 
ment or of its sending into all States agents to carry the news of 
recent discoveries in the science of agriculture. The $50,000,000 
which has been spent for research work in the department, how- 
ever, has come back many fold to the people of the United States, 
and all parties unite in the necessity for maintaining those appro- 
priations and increasing them as the demand shall increase. 
It is now propo^d to org-anize a force of 3,000 men, one to 
every county in the United States, who shall conduct experi- 
ments within the county for the edification and education of the 
present farmers and of the embryo farmers who are being edu- 
cated. It is proposed that these men shall be paid partly by the 
county, partly by the State, and partly by the Federal Govern- 
ment, and it is hoped that the actual demonstration on farms in 
the county — not at agricultural stations or schools somewhere in 
the State, but in the county itself — will bring home to farmers 
what it is possible to do with the very soil that they themselves 
are cultivating. I understand this to be the object of an associa- 
tion organized for the improvement of agriculture in the country, 
and I do not think we could have a more practical method than 
this. It is ordinarily not wise to unite administration between 
the county and State and Federal Governments, but this sub- 
ject is one so all-compelling, it is one in which all people are so 
much interested, that cooperation seems easy and the expendi- 
ture of money to good purpose so free from difficulty, that we 
may properly welcome the plan and try it. 
On the whole, therefore, I think our agricultural future is 
hopeful. I do not share the pessimistic views of many gentle- 
men whose statistics differ somewhat from mine, and who look 
forward to a strong probability of failure of self-support in 
food within the lives of persons now living. It is true that we 
shall have to continue the improvement in agriculture so as to 
make our addition to the product per acre 1 per cent, of the crop 
each year, or 10 per cent, each decade ; but considering what is 
done in Europe, this is not either impossible or improbable. The 
addition to the acreage in drainage and in irrigable lands will 
go on — must go on. The profit to the State or to the enterprise 
which irrigates or drains these lands will become sufficient to 
make it not only profitable, but necessary to carry through the 
project, and we may look forward to the middle of this century, 
when 200,000,000 of people shall swear fealty to the starry flag, 
as a time when America will still continue to feed her millions 
and feed them well out of her own soil. 
' Washington, D. C., October 5, 1911. 
