THIRD SESSION.

In the absence of President Wallace, who was attending the dinner given to the President of the United States, Prof. Condra acted as chairman of the meeting.

Professor Condra—Ladies and Gentlemen, your attention: We will continue the program this evening from 8 o’clock until the arrival of the President and his party. We will have reports from a number of the states. The states which are represented should send their representatives to the platform. If I understand it, we are now to hear from Michigan, Montana, New York and a number of other states, and in addition to that we will have a short talk which will please you I am sure. The first thing on the program is a flashlight picture.

After the flashlight picture was taken, the Congress continued as follows:

Professor Condra—Are there any announcements to be made by the members of the different committees? Has the chairman of the committee on resolutions an announcement to make?

I wish to announce that there are a good many scientific men present who are representing various bodies and they are going to hold a number of important meetings. One of these will be held in the Coates House, room 244, at 8:30 tomorrow morning. The question is, “What should be the relation of Conservation to Science, to the Discovery of Truth?” We must not divorce the two departments. They are identical when we understand the two. All chemists, geologists, agriculturists, and others who are ready to assist in this work and wish to meet with the scientists are invited to do so tomorrow morning. I understand Dr. Shinnick of Iowa is to preside at that meeting. He represents the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Another announcement: We have gathered here about one hundred state conservation commissioners. The conservation commissions of the various states are not political bodies, neither are they partisan, but they are men and women who are studying the truth underlying conservation. The conservation commissioners, together with the various scientists, namely, geologists, agriculturists, chemists and others, will hold meetings tomorrow. I ask you to take notice. And representing these various scientific bodies, the meeting of the conservation commissioners and the friends of that kind of work; those who want to get at the details of state conserving, including what we should investigate and give to the people as the basis of conservation activity, how we shall do soil survey, geological survey, what kind of maps must be prepared, what is the truth of dry farming, what is true drainage, how shall we make up the various inventories, what kind of forest study should be made in the state—in other words, in what manner are we to coöperate in the various states, and in what manner are we to coöperate with the Federal Government in getting at the conservation facts? We ask all of you interested in these subjects to join us in the white room at the Baltimore Hotel tomorrow. We will have talks by such men as Prof. Holden, Dr. Hawarth, W. J. Spillman, of the Department of Agriculture, and I might name a number of others, men practically engaged in this line of work. I would like to know whether there is anyone to speak for Michigan?

At the meeting of last year there was not full opportunity to hear from the men representing the states. We want these men to come forward and tell us what they are doing. Michigan has not responded. Is Montana represented? Is New York? New Mexico? We ask that you will come here to the platform. Will the representative of Pennsylvania please come to the platform? I ask those of you who are scattered here and there in this great building to be as quiet as you can, because there may be some who are not used to speaking before so many persons and it is rather difficult to speak from this position. Mr. Emil Gunther, representing Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia in particular.

Mr. Gunther—The chairman has just announced I may have five minutes. Realizing the importance of time, I wrote out my remarks so that I could not speak more than five minutes if I wanted to.

[Mr. Gunther’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]

Chairman Condra—It is quite possible that the people throughout this Middle Western country and all of the western part of the United States may fail to realize the different phases of activity that are maintained in the great empire state of New York. That state has recently established a conservation commission, with three scientists as members, paying those men $10,000 a year for the difficult task of organizing the various lines of conservation activity in the state. I have the pleasure of introducing one of the state commissioners of New York, Mr. John D. Moore.

[Mr. Moore’s address is in Supplementary Proceedings.]

Chairman Condra—Is the representative of South Carolina, Dr. M. W. Twitchell, present?

A Delegate from Kansas—We have tried to hear two speakers from the East, but in Kansas City, half way across the continent, we have been unable to hear them. If you have any more Eastern speakers, California, perhaps, in the rear end of the hall, would like to hear something they say.

Chairman Condra—I would call attention to the fact that people are coming in. I know that those who are here are as quiet as you can be, and I ask that those in the rear on this first floor will call the attention of the ushers to this fact so they may request people to enter more quietly. We realize that this is a very large building, and you ought not to require every man to speak to all of you. They haven’t all got lungs strong enough to make everyone hear, but we hope Dr. Twitchell has.

[Dr. Twitchell’s address is in Supplementary Proceedings.]

Chairman Condra—We will postpone the reports from the states until tomorrow. The first speaker represents the National Soil Fertility League, who will speak for ten minutes. After that we will have a talk by Bernard Baker, our old conservation friend, the man who was the president of the Congress at St. Paul during its last Congress. If President Taft should enter during either one of these speeches, I ask that the band may start up “America.” I think it would be appropriate to sing “America” when the President of this great country enters such a great hall filled with such an audience. (Applause) I understand that the gentleman who is to speak is able to talk to the uttermost parts of the gallery. I now introduce Howard H. Gross, president of the National Soil Fertility League. Mr. Gross, of Chicago.

Mr. Gross—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I want to thank you kindly for the applause, for it may be the only occasion when it would be proper. (Applause) I want to say as president of the National Soil Fertility League that it is an organization formed to do a specific definite work, and to work with this great Congress, and all who are striving for a better agriculture. I have been doing considerable institute work, and I made this observation: that the farmer was very quick to see and demonstrate how some of these half-baked theories that he was asked to subscribe to did not appeal to him, or, in other words, that we are all from Missouri, and it was necessary to be shown. (Applause) We know that we are not getting out of our farms what we ought to get. We know that Europe is getting two or three times as much per acre as we are. So, in the organization of the National Soil Fertility League I felt that two or three things were necessary: First, we must have an organization that would command the respect of the people, and when I give you the names of the gentlemen who make up the advisory committee I believe you will agree with me that they have been wisely chosen, and we are under obligations to them, all of us, for joining in a great work of this kind. On the advisory committee are Mr. James J. Hill of St. Paul, whom I regard as one of the greatest men who it has ever been my privilege to meet; the next is our most distinguished, our first citizen, William Howard Taft (applause); Franklin MacVeigh; Missouri’s great son, Champ Clark (applause)—gentlemen, this is not a political convention. Dr. James, of the University of Illinois; William Jennings Bryan (applause)—now, gentlemen, it would not do for me to read the other names if you are going to break over like this. It is against the rules. Mr. F. D. Coburn, Secretary of Agriculture of the State of Kansas (applause); Benjamin Franklin Yoakum; William George, banker and farmer; Samuel Gompers, president of the Federation of Labor (applause); Alvin H. Saunders of the Breeders’ Gazette; J. M. Studebaker, of wagon fame; Samuel Allerton; Henry Wallace, you all know (applause), and W. D. Howard is no less distinguished. The speaker is the only cheap skate in the crowd. (Applause)

Now, gentlemen, the National Soil Fertility League was formed for a definite purpose. It will have a paid organization. We will be Johnny-on-the-spot every minute during the year, doing business. What we propose to do is this: to supplement the great work that is being done by the agricultural colleges, and insist that the state and the nation shall recognize these great institutions with adequate contributions, so that they may do extension work and reach every community in the land from Maine to California. (Applause) We mean to have Congress appropriate a million dollars to start with, and increase it to eight or nine or ten millions if necessary, and every man who has anything to say in Washington is committed to this proposition from top to bottom, and we are going to get the money. Then we propose to have bills introduced at the next meeting of the Legislature in forty-four states, and get the people back of those bills, to the end that the money will be forthcoming to enable the college of agriculture to take up this great work and carry it forward. The plan will be to take a soil chemist, a skilled agriculturist, and put one in every county in the state. That man is responsible to the state university of where the county is situated. He will help the farmer solve the problems of a larger field, coöperating with him, studying the local conditions, to the end that we may establish a permanent agricultural college, and get the largest returns possible and maintain soil fertility. In Europe where they have been farming for a thousand or fifteen hundred years they are raising two or three times what we get, and our land originally was better than theirs. Now there are several problems that are collateral to this. Let me know, Mr. Chairman, when my time is up—and one is farm labor, how to keep the boy on the farm. The new agriculture showing the boy that we can use his brain as well as his brawn, that farming is profitable, far more than he thinks, that he can make dollars out of dimes by proper manipulation, and so he will see that the largest field of opportunity for a man of brawn and brain is in treating with the soil. Show him also that it is a high and noble and splendid business avocation. Also we must have better schools in the country. (Applause)

There is no reason why the boy and the girl on the farm should not have as good educational advantages as those in the city schools. The greatest product that we have on our farm is not cattle, hogs and alfalfa, wheat and oats, but the boy and the girl in the farm home. (Applause) Upon them depends the future of this great country. So let us realize the personal equation and take care of the boys and the girls; give them the education that they want and let them get it at home instead of going to town. Home life is a great deal more pleasant. You must have good roads, consolidated schools, fill your homes with the best there is in the land, and there is no place on God’s green earth where society and civilization can reach a higher plane and a better one than upon the great plain of Illinois and Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, and all these great states. But let the young men realize that they can learn something from the green leaves of the field, as well as from the yellow leaves of the library. When we get to doing business, and we are doing it now, we want you all to help us get the legislation that is necessary, so that we can provide abundant and cheap food supply for the country, and have plenty to ship abroad, without impairing one single dollar of the farmer’s income, but make it twice what it is today. (Applause)

Chairman Condra—I wonder if you really believe what this gentleman has said? (Sure we do. Yes.)

In the course of my work I have run on a few individuals who have an idea that it is not necessary for the state to be concerned with the materials of conservation, or with the conditions that obtain in those states. I hope that the time will come when the people on the farm, in the factory, all the citizens in the state will realize that an American state that does not have a full survey of its climate, its topography, its structure, its drainage, its resources, is behind the times. I want you people to pledge me, though not orally, that you will go home, return to your places, and stand by the men like Professor Holden, like Dr. Hawarth, like Dr. DeWolf, and those men who are farmer boys who have gone to the land to study the real value that they may give of their knowledge of farm management. Do you believe that? (Sure. Yes, sir. You bet.) Well, suppose as delegates we might bring in a resolution which says that conservation in these states must be based on that basis, on the material, on the conditions, would you vote it down? Would you believe that these men are sincere? Would you think those men are put in a glass case, that they represent a museum curiosity, or would you think that those men that are huskies, those men of brawn, would you think that those men are your friends, that they mean what they say and they know what they are talking about? They are the ones who have seen this thing from the practical side, and they must work with you. Let me sound this note: I make the plea that you may, in the conservation of the various states, stand for conservation based on fact, not on conservation based on dogma without foundation. Will you stand for that? (Applause) I wish to assure all now I am not now making an argument for the man who does the geological survey, the agricultural survey, the nursery survey, the industrial survey; I am making an argument to the people for the people who ought to have the truth of the situation, the benefit of those surveys. We have seen too many concerns floated without basis. We have seen altogether too much promotion without basis. The time is when our agriculture will flourish according to the conditions that obtain. We will not misrepresent for the purpose of drawing a population from one section of our great country to an unfavorable place in another section. We are going to take the land as it is. We will take the climate as it is. We will take the resources through and through as they are. And the state will place its stamp of approval, based on the fruits, and the people can go here and there according to the light that is found. And we condemn any concern in the state that goes into another state and misrepresents things to the people, taking them to a place for which they are not fitted, and to land which they do not understand. I do not want to discourage you, and here let me clear up a thought. We stand as conservationists for reclamation. We intend to make more of these dry lands, those sandy lands, those wet lands, and the various other kinds, and we want to get more out of these trees, out of that coal, out of that gold, out of that iron.

Let us stand on the basis of truth. Let us stand against misrepresentation. May I sound another warning? There never was a state that misrepresented industrial facts and attracted factories to those unfavorable places, or attracted people to an unfavorable locality, which they did not understand, there never was a state that permitted that but suffered for the same sooner or later. We must take truth as it is. We must abide by the facts. We must, as people of the state, loyal to our state and our country, put our forces against all kinds of misrepresentation, because they end up badly. (Applause) Now you don’t understand that, all of you. The farmer gets occasionally into some one of these concerns that ends badly. Then he objects to all kinds of business, and he objects to the railroads, and he objects to the men in the factory, and he thinks all business is illegitimate. We have reached a time in the conservation of our states when we will base our industry on investigation and reliable report, made by one who will not pad the facts.

I ask Mr. Baker to tell us a little about the Panama Canal.

Mr. Baker—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: The subject is not one as Prof. Condra said, that covers the subject of conservation to most people, but to me it means a great deal. It means that your government, your people are spending today some four hundred millions of dollars for the purpose of conserving the interests of transportation between the east and the west coast of the United States of all this great country, the enormous commerce that has been absolutely and almost entirely in the control of the railroads for so many years. So serious has this control been that for nineteen years the transcontinental railway pool paid to the owners of the Panama Railroad Company $1,080,000 a year for nineteen years to induce them not to do business. Think what that means. Not only that, but for many years they paid the United States of Colombia, which formerly and originally was under the Republic of Panama before it seceded, $10,000 a year to prevent the extension of that line, to deepwater, so as they could utilize that route to develop the commerce of the United States. Your Government, you people, are paying for that. I am going to tell you a little, while we are waiting for the President. I have just had the honor of being with him at dinner. He was unfortunately detained, but I expect him every moment, and it is not necessary for me to say that when he appears I shall retire.

They started out with that wonderful enterprise—the Panama Canal—by meeting the opposition of all the railroad interests that were determined that it should not be completed. Many, many times able articles, which many of you have read in the magazines, were written and paid for by the most eminent engineers to prove how totally impracticable the building of the Panama Canal was. It was a dream. A long dream, they used to say. It began in the early days of Spain when Columbus came to the Panama Canal. He was the first one to visit it. There was located on the west side of the canal what is known as the Treasure House of Spain. When our Government took hold of it, and employed the engineers to make a thorough survey, the question came up of building an open waterway free right down to sea level. When it was suggested that they build lock canals—and as many of you farmers to whom I am speaking may not understand that, I take a few minutes to explain exactly how they work. You come in on the level of the Caribbean sea, and the ship is elevated about thirty feet by sliding into a lock, the water pouring from the upper lock, sixty feet above, into this lower lock, thirty feet, and on this the ship rises. That occurs three times, until they bring the ship up to a level of eighty feet above the Caribbean sea. There is very little rise or fall in the tide of the Caribbean sea, only about eighteen inches, maximum and minimum. Then it enters into what is going to be—and now when I was there in November, had about twenty-eight to forty feet of water in it—a most beautiful fresh water lake some twenty-nine miles wide and some thirty long, bordered with the most beautiful mountain ranges. The ship will sail through that lake and will come into what you have all heard about, the wonderful Culebra cut, a cut straight through the mountains. One of the greatest difficulties, one that you have heard so much of, is the slides, the land constantly sliding down into that cut, was due to the character of the soil, it being a volcanic ash.

Now, the most wonderful thing has happened, due to modern invention, which has brought to work what is known as the cement gun, a gun that will fire cement into those banks and make them practically solid and prevent sliding. So they can go on and dig the canal without further interruption. There is no question whatever that the waterway will be opened to the people of the United States by the shortest possible route, saving 7,000 miles of water distance between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, all the way around the Straits of Magellan, by June, 1913. (Applause) Not only have they made the cement gun, but they have made the cement boat. I am an old steamship man of many years’ experience. I can remember some years ago when they talked about iron boxes floating as being impossible. Then they came to a steel box floating. Now, ladies and gentlemen, they are floating a stone box there, and putting on this stone box the gun which will fire the cement. It is made of cement. The steamer will proceed through that large cut, which is covered with the most wonderful vegetation that ever was written about, right in the tropics, within eight degrees of the equator. The ladies here—all ought to go to Panama and see the wonderful flowers, blooms—things that we see here in our greenhouses—there growing as trees—magnificent, wonderful—and the parrots playing through the woods. If you go a little way off you can also see the monkeys playing in the woods. All those things will be open to travel, and there will be the big fine passenger steamers going through there.

When you get over to the other side of the canal you meet first what is called the Piedro Miguel Locks. Peter McGill was an Irishman, but they called him, in Spanish, Piedro Miguel. A number of things down there are named after him. A short distance below you come to two more locks, lowering you to the level of the Pacific Ocean, which has a rise and fall of nearly eighteen feet. That is known as the Miraflores Lock, or many flowers. Now you have reached the Pacific Ocean. I want to go back just a moment, however, and tell you why it was necessary to make this lock canal. An old steamship man’s ideal way is simply to sail through without any destination whatever, but there is a river down there, you know, the Chagres river. Up to the time I was last down there they never had yet found the source of the river. The vegetation was so rank it was almost impossible to get through. That river has been known to rise sixty feet in forty-eight hours, and yet I have seen it when you could almost walk across the river bed. Imagine that kind of a flood being taken care of in an open waterway constituting a ship canal. I would not like to be on the ship that undertook to go through a canal that might possibly meet that condition of floods in Panama. I want to tell you another thing that to me is the most wonderful work I have ever seen, and that is the way everything is managed and controlled by one man, Col. Gilfos. He is a wonder. You can go among the engineers, the laboring men, constituting all the nationalities of that part of the country, a great many of them Jamaicans and West Indians, Spaniards, and everywhere you will hear, “We are working for Col. Gilfos.” No mistakes of any importance have been made. They all live there in the most perfect socialism, if I may call it in the true idea of socialism, the brotherhood of man, having everything in common.

When a lady wishes to give a dinner, she asks by telephone—Government telephone—for a carriage to be sent. It is a mule wagon generally, by the way. But now they are getting some automobiles. It takes her down to the commissary headquarters. She picks out what she wants to entertain her friends with, and she uses no money. It all comes up promptly just at the hour, and many times at prices which it would be impossible today to duplicate in some of our Western and Eastern cities. When the baby is sick she sends for the Government doctor. Everything is done in that way by the United States Government. Why, they even run the most wonderful hotel in the most wonderful way, the Hotel Tivoli. It is a beautiful place, a marvelous place, and a remarkable arrangement they have there. If you stay one week it is a fixed price per week. If you stay two weeks it is at proportionate reduction, and three weeks again a reduction, so as to encourage people to come there and stay in the hotel. They are now adding to the Tivoli a very large $500,000 addition, just to accommodate travelers, and everything is run by the Government. You never hear a word of complaint, never any differences. There seem to be no social bickerings or differences among the people. One goes everywhere and finds absolute social enjoyment. I never in my life have seen such a marvelous community. There is where we ought to raise our children. Little figures running about with very little on them, there is so much bright sunshine and beautiful weather they do not need clothes, and they seem to be perfectly healthy. When you think of it, an old saying used to be that when they built the railroad across there every tie cost a human life. Disease was terrible. For five years there has never been a case of fever—yellow fever—and it is the statistical record that it is one of the healthiest places today in the United States.

Of course it is not in the United States, but compared with any place in the United States. There was, by the way, one death, I understand, in Panama that was due to the curiosity of one of our dear women. She came down as a nurse, a trained nurse from New York, and did not believe that the mosquito could possibly convey fever. In the physical laboratory of the hospital at Ancon were a number of them in a glass case for experimental purposes. Talking to some of the other nurses when the doctors were not about, she put her finger in and allowed one of the mosquitoes to bite her. She was bitten all right. In five days she died of fever, proving beyond any question that the mosquito was the one thing that made all this unhealthfulness in the past. But not satisfied with that, the Government has drained in the most effectual way all the entire canal zone of some fifty miles long and ten miles wide. At the head of every small stream where there is any possibility of drainage or stagnant water producing mosquitoes, they place a small barrel of oil, with a drip. That drip is regulated just in proportion to the flow of water. Now today it is one of the most pleasant places in fair weather I ever saw. There are few or no flies on account of this strict sanitation, which includes also the removal of garbage. Everything of that kind is done by the Government in the most sanitary and most effective way. All the houses belong to the Government—they have single men’s apartments, and married men’s apartments, and houses for the different officers. There is provided a special can for the removal of all the garbage and refuse from the houses. If anyone leaves that open they are fined very promptly. No one does. An inspection officer is going about. So today I know of no more pleasant place in the world to spend a month or so than at the Hotel Tivoli, Panama.

Another curious thing may possibly interest you. The first time I went over to Ancon, which is on the west, the Pacific side—and I might explain about Ancon—there are three towns. There is the town of Panama, which stands on the Bay of Panama; a little distance off and connected with it, you can hardly tell where, is the American town of Ancon, and then across over a big hill is Balboa, the part in which the United States is making all its improvements—getting ready to take care of the transportation question. Now when I got down there, and I arrived rather early in the evening, I had a beautiful room assigned me. All the rooms have balconies. I went out and sat on the porch and looked at the Pacific Ocean. What, to my surprise, did I see? I didn’t know what had happened, but I saw the moon rising out of the Pacific Ocean. Now take that in if you can. It was in the east—the Pacific Ocean was to the southeast of Panama, and the moon was rising out of the Pacific Ocean, as the sun did the next morning. I was completely turned around. The Isthmus of Panama almost describes the letter “S.” We do not realize that unless we take an atlas and put it before us. If you ever see a drawing or illustration of the great work going on down there you will see how they always place Panama on the right-hand side of the map as you look at it. It seems all wrong. It ought not to be there. It did to me when I first saw it. I think I have talked about Panama long enough, and you must be tired, and I am quite sure the President will be here in the next few minutes. He is trying to get here as rapidly as possible. What he will tell you about conservation will be so much more than I can do. I thank you very much. (Applause)

Chairman Condra—I have a note from the director of the band saying that they can sing a certain song to be dedicated to the President. Dr. Hiner, have you the soloist there? Can you favor us with the song? It is to be sung next Saturday at Sedalia, I believe, and it has been dedicated to the President by his permission.

After the singing of the song, the President entered, accompanied by his official party and members of the Commercial Club and others, the audience rising and singing “America,” after which long and loud cheering took place for several minutes.

President Wallace—Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of the Conservation Congress: It is my high privilege and duty to introduce to you tonight, Hon. William H. Taft, President of the United States. (Loud applause and cheers)

ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

President Taft—Your distinguished President, Dr. Wallace, a month or two ago wrote me and asked me to come before this Congress and advocate and talk about the conservation of the soil. If that subject does not address itself to you as a proper one in this Congress, you must blame your president. If what I say is not orthodox, you must blame him, because he called on me. But I am going to read you the best view that I can make from the consideration of the best authorities that I can find on that subject. And if you will bear with me, I will promise not to keep you long, for the reason that my knowledge on the subject will not consume a great deal of time.

At last year’s convention of this Congress I had the honor and pleasure of delivering an address on the subject of conservation of our national resources, and therein attempted to state what the terms “conservation of our natural resources” meant, what were the statutes affecting and enforcing such conservation, classified the different public lands to which it would apply, and suggested what I thought was the proper method of disposing of each class of lands. Nothing has been done on this subject by Congress since that time, but it is hoped that the present Congress at its regular session will take up the question of the conservation of government land containing coal and phosphates or of furnishing water power, adopt some laws that will permit the use and development of these lands in Alaska and in continental United States, and evolve a system by which the Government shall retain proper ultimate control of the lands, and at the same time offer to private investment sufficient returns to induce the outlay of capital needed to make the lands useful to the public. The discussion did not invoke the consideration of any question which directly concerned the production of food.

Tonight, however, I wish to consider in a summary way another aspect of conservation far more important than that of preserving for the public interests public lands, that is, the conservation of the soil with a view to the continued production of food in this country sufficient to feed our growing population.

We have in continental United States about 1,900,000,000 acres. Of this the Agricultural Department, through its correspondents, estimate that 950,000,000 acres of this are capable of cultivation. Of this, 873,729,000 acres are now in farms. The remainder, about 1,000,000,000 acres, is land which is untillable. It is reasonably certain that substantially all the virgin soil of a character to produce crops has been taken up. It is doubtful how much of the part not included in farms can be brought into a condition where tillage will be profitable.

The total acreage of farms in the last ten years, although the pressure for increased acreage by reason of high farm prices was great, was only about four per cent, or about 32,000,000. There are upwards of 25,000,000 acres that will be brought in under our irrigation system, and perhaps more, and the amount of lands which can be drained and made useful for agriculture will amount to about 70,000,000 acres.

The total improved farm lands in the United States amount to 477,448,000 acres, which is an increase in the last ten years of 62,949,000, or fifteen and two-tenths per cent. The product per acre actually cultivated increased in the last ten years one per cent a year, or ten per cent. The total product increased in ten years nearly twenty per cent.

INCREASE OF POPULATION.

The population in this same time increased twenty-one per cent. If the population continues to increase at its present rate, we shall have in fifty years double the number of people we now have. It is necessary then that not only our acreage but our product per acre must increase proportionately so that our people may be fed. We must realize that the best land and easiest land to cultivate has been taken up and cultivated and that the additions to improved lands and to total acreage in the future must be of land much more expensive to prepare for tillage. The increase per acre of the product, too, must be steady each year, and each year an increase is more difficult. Still, even in the face of these facts, there is no occasion for discouragement. We are going to remain as a self-supporting country and raise food enough within our borders to feed our people. When we think that in Germany and Great Britain crops are raised from land which has been in cultivation for one thousand years, and that these lands are made to produce over two and three times per acre what the comparatively fresh lands in this country produce in the best states, it becomes very apparent that we shall be able to meet the exigency by better systems of farming and more intense and careful and industrious cultivation. The theory seems to have been in times past that soils became exhausted by constant cultivation, but the result in Europe, by which acres under constant use for producing crops for ten centuries are made now to produce crops three times those of this country, shows that there is nothing in this theory, and that successful farming can be continued on land long in use and great crops raised and garnered from it if only it be treated scientifically and in accordance with its necessity. There is nothing peculiar about soils in Europe that give the great yield per acre there and prevent its possibility in the United States. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that the application of the same methods would produce just as large crops here as abroad.

One of the great reasons for discouragement felt by many who have written on this subject is found in the movement of the population from farm to city. This has reached such a point that the urban population is now forty-six per cent of the total, while the rural population is but fifty-three per cent, counting as urban all who live in cities exceeding 2,500 inhabitants. This movement has been persistent, and has made it very difficult for the farmers to secure adequate agricultural labor, with an increase in the price of labor which naturally follows such a condition. Still we ought to realize that enormous advances in the machinery used on the farm have reduced the necessity for a great number of farm hands on each farm.

THE COST OF FARM PRODUCTION.

Mr. Holmes, of the Department of Agriculture, in the Yearbook of that Department of 1899, points out that between the years 1855 and 1894, the time of human labor required to produce one bushel of corn on an average declined from four hours and thirty-four minutes to forty-one minutes, and the cost of the human labor to produce this bushel declined from thirty-five and three-fourths cents to ten and one-half cents. Between 1830 and 1896 the time of human labor required for the production of a bushel of wheat was reduced from three hours to ten minutes, while the price of the labor required for this purpose declined from seventeen and three-fourths cents to three and one-half cents. Between 1860 and 1894 the time of human labor required for the production of a ton of hay was reduced from thirty-five and one-half hours to eleven hours and thirty-four minutes, and the cost of labor per ton was reduced from $3.06 to $1.29.

In 1899, the calculation made with respect to the reduction in the cost of labor for the production of seven crops of that year over the old-time manner of production in the fifties and sixties, shows it to have been $681,000,000 for one year. But while it is possible to say that there may be in the future improvements in machinery which will reduce the number of necessary hands on the farm, it is quite certain that in this regard the prospect of economy in labor for the future is not to be compared with that which has been effected in the last thirty years. Hence we must regard the question of available population and available labor in that population for the cultivation of the fields as an important consideration. My impression from an examination of the figures is that the change in this last decade from farm to city has not been as great in its percentage as it was in previous decades, and if this be true, it indicates that there is in the present situation an element that will help to cure the difficulty. Farm prices are increasing so rapidly and the profits of farming are becoming apparently much more certain and substantial. While the acreage of the improved land only increased 65,000,000, or fifteen per cent, and the total acreage only four per cent, the value of the farms in money increased from $20,000,000,000 to $40,000,000,000 in ten years—an enormous advance. This, of course, was due somewhat to the investment of additional money in the improvement of land, and somewhat to the increase in the supply of gold which had the effect of advancing all prices, but the chief cause for the advance is in the increase in the price of farm products at the farm. So great is this increase that the value of the average farm has now gone from $3,562 to $6,440, while the average value per acre has increased from $19.81 to $39.09. In addition to this, comfort of farm life has been so greatly added to in the last ten years by the rural free delivery, the suburban electric railway, the telephone and the automobile, that there is likely in the next ten years to be a halt in this change toward the city, and more people in proportion are likely to engage in gainful occupation on the farm than has heretofore been the case. Such an effect would be the natural result of the actual economic operation of the increase in the value of the farm product, and the increase in the certainty of farming profits. It is the business of the country, insofar as it can direct the matter, to furnish the means by which this economic force shall exert itself along the lines of easiest and best increase of production. Of course the Government by furnishing assistance in irrigation increases the amount of tillable land, and the states, if they undertake the drainage of swamp lands, will do the same thing. The cost of such improvements will be considerable, and will affect the farming profit, but the result generally in such cases is to yield such great crops per acre that the farmer can well afford to pay interest on the increased investment. Increased acreage from any other source is likely to be, however, in more stubborn land, calling for greater effort in tillage and producing less per acre. We may reasonably infer from the high prices of the decade immediately passed that everything was done by those who owned land to enlarge the acreage where that was easy, or practical, and that what is yet to be brought in as tillable land presents greater difficulties and greater expense. The way in which the states can help to meet future increased demand is by investigation and research into the science of agriculture, and by giving to the farming community a knowledge which shall enable them better to develop the soil, and by educating those who are coming into the profession of farming. It is now almost a learned profession.

CONSERVATION OF THE SOIL.

The first great step that has to be taken in reformed agriculture is the conservation of the soil. Under our present system the loss to the farms in this country by the erosion of the soil is hardly to be calculated. Engineers have shown how much is carried down the great rivers of the country and is deposited as silt each year at their mouths. The number of cubic yards staggers the imagination. The question is how this can be prevented as it must be because the soil which is carried off by this erosion is generally the richest and the best soil of the farms which are thus denuded.

Of the rain or snow which falls on the land, a part evaporates into the air; a second part flows down the slopes to the streams and is called the run-off. The third part soaks into the soil and subsoil, and thence into underlying rocks, perhaps to reappear in springs or seepage into streams. This is called ground water. The fourth part is absorbed by organisms, chiefly by trees, grasses and crop plants, either directly through the tissues or indirectly through the roots penetrating the moistened soil. Erosion is due to the run-off, and its quantity is dependent on the slope of the farm and also the nature of the soil and its products. Any reasonable slope, and any full cover of forest or grass with an abundant mulch, or a close crop on a deeply broken soil, or a friable furrow-slice kept loose by suitable cultivation, will absorb rain and curtail the run-off, or even reduce it to slow seepage through the surface soil which is the ideal condition. Now the ground water is the most essential constituent of the soil, because solution, circulation and organic assimilation are dependent on water. All the organisms and tissues are made up of this solvent of water, and it constitutes a large percentage of the bodies and food of men and animals. The question of the amount or ratio of ground water in the soil is a vital one. If it is excessive it makes a sodden mass, sticky when wet, but baked when dry, so that there is no possible absorption further into it, and it sends on the water that falls on it to erode easy slopes.

The erosion begins on the farm and should be remedied there. Deep cultivation tends to absorb the product of each rainfall and to reduce the run-off. Deep cultivation brings up fresh earth salts to the shorter rootlets, but carries down the humus and mulch to thicken the soil and feed the deepest roots. In flat lying fields and tenacious soils, tile drainage is the best method of relieving the farm from the danger of too great run-off. Deep drainage permits both soil and subsoil to crumble and disintegrate and through mechanical and chemical changes to become friable and capable of taking on and holding the right amount of moisture for plant growth, while the water which runs out through the drain is clear without carrying the soil with it, and therefore without erosion. Of course different farms require different treatments. Certain farms require what is called contour cultivation, by which each furrow is to be run in such a way as to level and to hold the water. On hilly lands, strips of grass land are grown, called balks or breaks, separating zones of plow land, and they should curve with the slopes, and the soil being carried by the water will be caught by them and constitute them a kind of terrace without effort. The use of forests, of course, in foothills and deeply broken country is essential and should be combined with grazing. They will prevent the formation of torrents by making the mulch and soil deep and spongy. Of course over all mountain divides, the retention of forests greatly helps to prevent the carrying off of the good soil to the valleys below. The proper selection of crops has much to do with the stopping of erosion.

I gather these facts from the reports of the Secretary of Agriculture as to the best method of preventing erosion. They are simple and easily understood, but they need to be impressed upon the farmers by education and by reiteration. Then the productivity of the soils might very well be increased by more careful use of commercial fertilizers. In 1907 $100,000,000 was expended in fertilizers, but the Agricultural Department is of opinion that one-third of this was wasted for lack of knowledge as to how to use it.

Careful crop rotation is essential because it has been found that the remains of one crop has a poisonous effect upon the next crop if it is of the same plant, but such remains do not interfere with the normal production of a different plant. Then a kind of crop should be selected to follow which will renew that element in the soil which the first crop exhausted.

FARM ORGANIZATION.

Then there is the organization of the farm on plain business principles by which the buildings and the machinery are so arranged as to make the movement of crops and food and animals as easy and economical as possible. A study as to the character of the soil and the crops best adapted to the soil; the crops to be used in rotation for the purpose of strengthening the soil—all these are questions that address themselves to a scientific and professional agriculturist, and which all farmers are bound to know if the product per acre is to be properly increased. We have every reason to hope, from the forces now making toward the education and information of the farmer, as to the latest results in scientific agriculture, that the country will have the advantage of improvement in our farming along the proper lines. Further agricultural development is to be found in the breeding of proper plants for the making of the best crops, while the growth of live stock is made much more profitable both to the owner and to the public by improving the breed and the infusion of the blood of the best stock.

The improvement in agricultural education goes on apace. All the states are engaged in spending money to educate the coming farmer, and this system is being extended so that now we have the consolidated rural school, the farmers’ high school, and the agricultural college, and one who intends to become a farmer is introduced to his profession soon after he learns to read and write, and he continues his study of it until he graduates from his college and applies for a place upon the farm.

The land-grant colleges established by the Federal Government have vindicated the policy in making the grant. Now the department employs eleven thousand persons, many of whom are engaged in conducting experiment stations and spreading information all over the country. The coöperation between the state agricultural school system and the Federal Government’s publicity bureau and experimental work is as close and fine as we could ask. It is difficult to justify the expenditure of money for agricultural purposes in the Agricultural Department with a view to its publication for use of the farmers, or to make grants to schools for farmers on any constitutional theory that will not justify the Government in spending money for any kind of education the country over; but the welfare of the people is so dependent on improved agricultural conditions that it seems wise to use the welfare clause of the Constitution to authorize the expenditure of money for the improvement in agricultural 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 sufficient importance to justify its maintenance of so large a department 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 in the department, however, has come back many fold to the people of the United States, and all parties unite in the necessity for maintaining those appropriations and increasing them as the demand shall increase.

EXPERIMENTS FOR EACH COUNTY.

It is now proposed to organize a force of 3,000 men, one to every county in the United States, who shall conduct experiments within the county for the edification and education of the present farmers and of the young embryo farmers who are being educated. It is proposed that these men shall be paid partly by the county, partly by the state, and partly by the Federal Government, 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 the 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 association 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 subject is one so all-compelling, it is one in which all people are so much interested, that coöperation seems easy and the expenditure 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 gentlemen 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 one per cent of the crop each year, or ten 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 probable but necessary to carry through the project, and we may look forward to the middle of this century when 200,000,000 of people will 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.

At the conclusion of the President’s address, President Wallace declared the Congress adjourned until tomorrow morning, 9:30 o’clock.