THE PRESIDENT TO THE FARMERS OF AMERICA. 
[Extracts from President Wilson’s message to the Farmers’ Conference at Urbana, IIl., Jan. 31, 1918.] @ 
“The forces that fight for freedom, the freedom of men all over the world as well 
as our own, depend upon usin an extraordinary and unexpected degree for sustenance, 
for the supply of the materials by which men are to live and to fight, and it will be our 
glory when the war is over that we have supplied those materials and supplied them 
abundantly, and it will be all the more glory because in supplying them we have 
made our supreme effort and sacrifice. 
“Tn the field of agriculture we have agencies aa instrumentalities, fortunately, 
such as no other government in the world can show. The Department of Agriculture 
is undoubtedly the greatest practical and scientific agricultural organization in the 
world. Its total agua budget of $45,009,000 has been increased during the last 
four years more than 72 percent. It hasa staff of 18.000, including a large number of 
highly trained experts, and alongside of it stand the unique land-grant colleges, which 
are without example elsewhere, and the 69 State and Federal experiment stations: 
These colleges and experiment stations have a total endowment of plant and equip- 
ment of $172,000,000 and an income of more than $35.000,000, with 10,271 teachers. a 
resident student body of 125,000, and a vast additional number receiving instruction 
at their homes. County agents, joint officers of the Department of Agriculture and 
of the colleges, are everywhere cooperating with the farmers and assisting them. The 
number of extension workers under the Smith-Lever Act and under the recent emerg- 
‘ency legislation has grown to 5,500 men and women working regularly in the various 
communities and taking to the farmer the latest scientific and practical information. 
Alongside these great public agencies stand the very effective voluntary organizations 
among the farmers themselves which are more and more learning the best methods of 
cooperation and the best methods of putting to practical use the assistance derived 
from governmental sources. The banking legislation of the last two or three years 
has given the farmers access to the great lendable capital of the country, and it has 
become the duty both of the men in charge of the Federal-reserve banking system 
and of the farm-loan banking system to see to it that the farmers obtain the credit, 
both short term and long term, to which they are entitled not only, but which it is 
imperatively necessary should be extended to them if the present tasks of the country 
are to be adequately performed. Both by direct purchase of nitrates and by the 
establishment of plants to produce nitrates, the Government is doing its utmost to 
assist in the problem of fertilization. The Department of Agriculture and other 
agencies are actively assisting the farmers to locate, safeguard, and secure at cost an 
adequate supply of sound seed. 
“The farmers of this country are as efficient as any other farmers in the world. 
They do not produce more per acre than the farmers in Europe. It is not necessary 
that they should do so. It would perhaps be bad economy for them to attempt it. 
But they do produce by two to three or four times more per man, per unit of labor 
and capital, than the farmers of any European country. They are more alert and 
use more labor-saving devices than any other farmersin the world. And their response 
to the demands of the present emergency has been in every way remarkable. Last 
spring [1917] their planting exceeded by 12,000,000 acres the largest planting of any 
previous year, and the yields from the creps were record-breaking yields. In the 
fall of 1917 a wheat acreage of 42,170,000 was planted, which was 1,000,000 larger 
than for any preceding year, 3.000.000 greater than the next largest, and 7,000,000 
greater than the preceding five-year average. 
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