AGRICULTURE AGRICULTURE
revival of recent years in intelligent interest in and work
for those who live in the open country. In this
movement the lead must be taken by the farmers
themselves; but our people as a whole, through their
governmental agencies, should back the farmers....
The government must co-operate with the farmer
to make the farm more productive. There must be no
skinning of the soil. The farm should be left to the
farmer's son in better, and not worse, condition because
of its cultivation. Moreover, every invention and
improvement, every discovery and economy, should be
at the service of the farmer in the work of production.
(Before Progressive National Convention, Chicago,
August 6, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 377; Nat. Ed. XVII,
the Country Life Commission, February 9, 1909.
(Washington, 1909), pp. 8-9.
AGRICULTURE—NEEDS OF. The elimination of
the middleman by agricultural exchanges and by the use
of improved business methods generally, the
development of good roads, the reclamation of arid
lands and swamplands, the improvement in the
productivity of farms, the encouragement of all
agencies which tend to bring people back to the soil and
to make country life more interesting as well as more
profitable—all these movements will help not only the
farmer but the man who consumes the farmer's
products. (Before Progressive National Convention,
Chicago, August 6, 1912.) Mem. Ed. XIX, 399; Nat.
Ed. XVII, 289.
AGRICULTURE, SCIENTIFIC. Nothing in the way
of scientific work can ever take the place of business
management on a farm. We ought all of us to teach
ourselves as much as possible; but we can also all of us
learn from others; and the farmer can best learn how to
manage his farm even better than he now does by
practice, under intelligent supervision, on his own soil
in such way as to increase his income. . . . But much
has been accomplished by the growth of what is
broadly designated as agricultural science. Much more
can be accomplished in the future. . . . It is probably one
of our faults as a nation that we are too impatient to
wait a sufficient length of time to accomplish the best
results; and in agriculture effective research often,
although not always, involves slow and long-continued
effort if the results are to be trustworthy. While applied
science in agriculture as elsewhere must be judged
largely from the standpoint of its actual return in
dollars, yet the farmers, no more than anyone else, can
afford to ignore the large results that can be enjoyed
because of broader knowledge. The farmer must
prepare for using the knowledge that can be obtained
through agricultural colleges by insisting upon a
constantly more practical curriculum in the schools in
which his children are taught. He must not lose his
independence, his initiative, his rugged self-sufficiency;
and yet he must learn to work in the heartiest
cooperation with his fellows. (At semi-centennial
celebration, founding of agricultural colleges; Lansing,
Mich., May 31, 1907.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 179; Nat. Ed.
XVI, 135.
270.
AGRICULTURE—IMPORTANCE OF. We cannot
permanently shape our course right on any international
issue unless we are sound on the domestic issues; and
this farm movement is the fundamental social issue—
the one issue which is even more basic than the
relations of capitalist and working man. The farm
industry cannot stop; the world is never more than a
year from starvation; this great war has immensely
increased the cost of living without commensurately
improving the condition of the men who produce the
things on which we live. (1917.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 111;
Nat. Ed. XIX, 113.
____________. To improve our system of agriculture
seems to me the most urgent of the tasks which lie
before us. But it can not, in my judgment, be effected
by measures which touch only the material and
technical side of the subject; the whole business and life
of the farmer must also be taken into account. . . .
I warn my countrymen that the great recent
progress made in city life is not a full measure of our
civilization; for our civilization rests at bottom on the
wholesomeness, the attractiveness, and the
completeness, as well as the prosperity, of life in the
country. The men and women on the farms stand for
what is fundamentally best and most needed in our
American life. Upon the development of country life
rests ultimately our ability, by methods of farming
requiring the highest intelligence, to continue to feed
and clothe the hungry nations; to supply the city with
fresh blood, clean bodies, and clear brains that can
endure the terrific strain of modern life; we need the
development of men in the open country, who will be in
the future, as in the past, the stay and strength of the
nation in time of war, and its guiding and controlling
spirit in time of peace. Special Message from the
President of the United States transmitting the report of
AGRICULTURE AND THE TARIFF. Agriculture is
now, as it always has been, the basis of civilization. The
six million farms of
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