The activities of our age in lines of research have reached the tillers of the soil and inspired them with ambition to know more of the principles that govern the forces of nature with which they have to deal.  Nearly half of the people of this country devote their energies to growing things from the soil.  Until a recent date little has been done to prepare these millions for their life work.  In most lines of human activity college-trained men are the leaders.  The farmer had no opportunity for special training until the Congress made provision for it forty years ago.  During these years progress has been made and teachers have been prepared.  Over five thousand students are in attendance at our State agricultural colleges.  The Federal Government expends ten millions of dollars annually toward this education and for research in Washington and in the several States and Territories.  The Department of Agriculture has given facilities for post-graduate work to five hundred young men during the last seven years, preparing them for advance lines of work in the Department and in the State institutions.

The facts concerning meteorology and its relations to plant and animal life are being systematically inquired into.  Temperature and moisture are controlling factors in all agricultural operations.  The seasons of the cyclones of the Caribbean Sea and their paths are being forecasted with increasing accuracy.  The cold winds that come from the north are anticipated and their times and intensity told to farmers, gardeners, and fruiterers in all southern localities.

We sell two hundred and fifty million dollars’ worth of animals and animal products to foreign countries every year, in addition to supplying our own people more cheaply and abundantly than any other nation is able to provide for its people.  Successful manufacturing depends primarily on cheap food, which accounts to a considerable extent for our growth in this direction.  The Department of Agriculture, by careful inspection of meats, guards the health of our people and gives clean bills of health to deserving exports; it is prepared to deal promptly with imported diseases of animals, and maintain the excellence of our flocks and herds in this respect.  There should be an annual census of the live stock of the Nation.

We sell abroad about six hundred million dollars’ worth of plants and their products every year.  Strenuous efforts are being made to import from foreign countries such grains as are suitable to our varying localities.  Seven years ago we bought three-fourths of our rice; by helping the rice growers on the Gulf coast to secure seeds from the Orient suited to their conditions, and by giving them adequate protection, they now supply home demand and export to the islands of the Caribbean Sea and to other rice-growing countries.  Wheat and other grains have been imported from light-rainfall countries to our lands in the West and Southwest that