curriculums are usually arranged by those without commercial experience. I have looked in vain through courses of study in agricultural colleges for evidence of any understanding of the supreme importance of such knowledge to the farmer producing for the general market. The subject is much better understood by commercial men, who find some. knowledge of it essential. The great organizers of industry know a great deal about it. None need it so badly as the farmer, who must bear all the risks of production. In due time the universities will understand its importance, and begin to send out men equipped to deal with it, and with the standard of the lives of the different peoples.

In so far as one knows the cost of his own products, those of his competitors, and the cost of the transportation which each must bear, he is fairly well equipped as a producer and seller. He can judge what it will pay him to produce. The largest farmers understand these things very well. But there is another side to this marketing problem-the side of the consumers. It is the desires of consumers which create demand. These desires may be stimulated. It is a part of the trade of a good marketer to create desires which do not exist. A wise producer also understands existing demand and seeks to learn whether he can profitably fill it. If he proposes to grow flax, for example, he seeks to learn what qualities are required in flax for different uses, so as to decide whether or not his farm will produce that kind of flax.

But, in addition to the mere questions of marketing, the farmer's net income is affected in hundreds of ways, by forces which he can not control, but may, if he will, understand. Society itself is a product of an evolution not yet complete. Its development is proceeding according to natural laws, some of which, at any rate, we can perceive. The science which deals with those phenomena of society which most directly affect men's incomes is called "Economics." It considers such questions as taxation, banking, cooperation, transportation, currency, commerce in all its forms, and kindred topics, many of them the subject of political action. The farmer needs to understand these subjects as they really are, not only in order

that he may think and vote intelligently, but that he may not wear his heart out in struggling with imaginary causes of evil, or with economic tendencies which can not be changed. A great part of the education which is the Hope of the farmer lies right here. It is a part that has been too much neglected. One agricultural college only that I know of (Wisconsin), recognizes by its course of study that some knowledge of economics is a necessary part of a farmer's education. In time more will do so; meantime it is hoped that this book will be found helpful. It deals with matters which the farmer must understand if he is to use his faculties and his influence to the best advantage of himself and the world.

CHAPTER II.

A

THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES.

S is well known, the Agricultural Colleges of the country

received their first endowment by a donation of lands

from the United States.* The sale of these lands and the application of the funds were left to the states, some of which have conserved them and have large endowments, while others permitted them to be sold to speculators at low rates, and now suffer for their folly. In addition to this endowment, these colleges now receive an annual money appropriation from the general government, whose expenditure is in some degree supervised by national authority. All these are Colleges of Mechanics as well as of agriculture, and while called "Agricultural" Colleges, are as much bound to develop mechanical as agricultural science. In most states there is now a "State University." In some states the national endówment for the Agricultural College has been turned over to the State University, in which case the institution is usually known as the "Agricultural College of University."

In other cases the management has been kept separate, and the location made in some other place than the University town. This has frequently been determined simply by the relative strength in the Legislature of rival places seeking the advantage of the school and the trade it would bring. For the most part, the so-called "purely Agricultural" Colleges are weak for the reason that they have not the means to support a sufficient number of instructors, or provide suitable laboratories and shops. To make their money go as far as it will, they are compelled to pay lower salaries than the stronger colleges, and so are unable to attract the strongest men or retain such strong men as they develop. Certainly I do not *See Appendix A for Morrill Acts and Hatch Act.

say this of all separate Agricultural Colleges, but this is the tendency. An Agricultural College attached to a strong University does not have to maintain professors of botany, mathematics, chemistry, physics, languages, and the like, which are part of the equipment of all great Universities, but can expend all its means in the applications of those sciences to agriculture. Higher education is a very costly thing. Mechanics includes machinery, and can not be taught without machinery, and the maintenance of the necessary engineering plant is too great a strain upon the resources of most of the separate Agricultural Colleges. The inevitable result is that many students are drawn from the colleges of their own states to the larger and better-equipped institutions of other states. In most cases, whether the colleges are separate or included in the State University, they receive aid from the treasury of the state. A great University requires an income of at least $1,000 per day, with a tendency to increase. A first-rate Agricultural College alone will need at least $500 per day. It is not believed that any of our strictly Agricultural and Mechanical Colleges have anything like this income, but a first-rate Agricultural College can be maintained in connection with a great University upon an income of from $200 to $300 per day.

The proper office of the Agricultural College is not well understood. The popular impression of it is as a place where young persons are educated to become farmers. This impression is wholly erroneous. Such was never the intention of an Agricultural College, nor is any such function possible to it. We can not afford to spend years in learning one trade, only to forsake it and practise another. Nor is it done. Those who have been sent to Agricultural Colleges with the expectation of becoming farmers have almost invariably ended by being something else. This has led to the common complaint that Agricultural Colleges "educate the boys away from the farm.” Of course they do. That is what they are for.* The error is

*This must not be misunderstood. The meaning is that a full graduate from a first-class Agricultural College is equipped for something different from manual labor—not "better," but "different." The farm worker is helped by the "shorter," or "special" courses. See chapter 4 of this book.

not in the Agricultural Colleges but in the false popular impression of their nature and function. A rich man's son, who may expect to become the owner of a large landed estate, or the poor man's son, who may hope for the superintendency of such a property, will do well to graduate from an Agricultural College. As a preparation for the life of an ordinary farmer, a course at an Agricultural College is a foolish waste. The reason is, as we shall see, that nine-tenths of the time of the student will be expended in learning what he will have no occasion to apply, and will soon forget.

The office of the Agricultural College is to investigate phenomena connected with farm life and the operations of farming, and disseminate the information gathered. Of its graduates, the functions of some must be to continue original investigations, and others to convey what is learned to the people at large. Occasionally, as stated, they will serve as managers of large properties. For this, however, vigor, executive ability, and common sense are essential. An individual possessing these qualities will be made more valuable by the education to be obtained in an Agricultural College. But if the knowledge gained is to be applied only to an ordinary farm, the cost of obtaining it would be as unwise an expenditure as the purchase of a combined harvester by the farmer who raises only twenty acres of wheat. Besides, eight years spent in sedentary employment when a young man, is almost sure to cause a dislike for the physical work of a farm. Habits are not easy to change.

The graduate of an Agricultural College should be able to analyze soils and foods. The farmer does not need to do this, nor could he usually have the laboratory and appliances for accurate work; neither, unless constantly engaged in it, would he be able to retain his skill. Nowadays, when a farmer desires an analysis of his soil, or of any special food, he gets it done for nothing, by experts, by sending it to his Agricultural College. Why spend much money to prepare one's self to do poorly that which he can get well done for nothing? The agricultural graduate should be a bacteriologist. That is, he should be familiar with known forms of bacteria, and