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thousands to them year by year. This is hut one of many cases of like character. 
What they may mean may well give us pause. 
Much as the labor question has been in evidence one phase of it has received lit- 
tle attention. When a manufacturing establishment closes its doors and hundreds 
or thousands of workmen are thrown out of employment we properly regard it as 
a great misfortune. Many have not seriously considered the fact that, largely 
because of the nature of the work, but partly because of the peculiarities of our 
farming system, each year, on the approach of winter, not hundreds, not thousands, 
not scores of thousands, not hundreds of thousands, but literally millions of men 
and boys employed on the farms of the United States during summer are thrown 
into comparative or absolute idleness, so far as work on the farms is concerned. The 
unequal demand for labor at different seasons of the year is one of the weak places 
in our farming system. A thoughtful observer from France has recently called 
attention to this, and emphasized, as one cause of it, the absence of minor agricul- 
tural industries. We are lacking in farm manufacturing. This same observer was 
much impressed by and highly complimented the perfection of our farm machinery, 
as have multitudes of other intelligent students of our agriculture. This large use 
of machinery makes necessary both intelligent direction and intelligent workmen 
on our farms. 
In many ways the ingenuity of the inventor and the skill of the mechanic are 
adding to the productive power of our farms. Not always have we been able to 
equally rapidly find markets for these products. 
These are some of the conditions seen by thoughtful students of American agri- 
culture, and each suggests great problems not fully solved. 
If we look at special conditions of the year, we are confronted by the effects of the 
most disastrous drought ever known in our country, measured by the diminution of 
farm products. How far can irrigation be made practicable; what are the best 
methods of introducing the system where it is practicable ; how can we best conserve 
the rainfall where this is deficient, and how best reduce evaporation during drought, 
are questions which ask themselves. 
We see the end, we may hope, of the reduction in price of one of our great cereals, 
a reduction which has caused wheat to cease to be used almost exclusively as food 
for man and led to perhaps one-seventh of the crop for the year being fed to farm ani- 
mals. It would seem that efforts to induce Europeans to use maize as food for man 
might be suspended for a time while we urge them to more largely use wheat. 
To the agricultural colleges and experiment stations is given the duty and priv- 
ilege of carefully considering and trying to solve the problems suggested by this 
hasty sketch — and others like them. 
I closely associate the two classes of institutions here, as I always do in my 
thought. It is well they are linked together in the name of this Association, as they 
are by law. In exceptional cases it has been thought best to separate them, but I 
wish to emphasize my earnest conviction that, as a rule, an intimate union is best for 
both; that the teacher should investigate and the investigator teach. That there 
are difficulties in the proper adjustment of the work is freely admitted. Usually 
the attempt to make an equal division of time and thought between the two classes 
of work will be unwise. But for teacher, investigator., student, and the farming 
public, I believe there should be good opportunity and good use of the opportunity 
for each worker to observe, and for many of them to do work both as teacher and 
investigator. 
We all admit something of disappointment in the results as yet reached by the 
agricultural colleges in giving direct education along agricultural lines. They 
have done good work and are doing more and better than ever before; but at the 
best they reach directly only a very small percentage of the farming population. In 
the discussions at former meetings of this Association many reasons have been given 
for this condition. Perhaps a chief reason for our disappointment is that many of 
us had too high hopes. It was hardly reasonable to expect that any large percent- 
