The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-04-07

Continued from Page one.)
 it's work to which the Department of Az riculture devotes more care: Thus the de- partment has been successfully introduc- ing a macaroni wheat from the headwa- ters of the Volga. which grows success fully in ten inches of rainfall. and by this means wheat growing has been suc- cessfully extended westward into the semi-arid region. Two million bushels of this wheat were grown last year; and be- ing suited to dry conditions 1t can be used for forage as well as for food for man.
 The Department of Agriculture has been helping our fruit men to establish mar kets abroad by studying methods of fruit through methods of handling and % backing. % On the Gulf coastts of Louisiana and Texas thanks to the Department of Agri- culture, rice suitable to the region was imported from the Orient and the rice crop is now practically equal to our needs In this country, whereas a few years ago 1t supplied but one-fourth of them. The most important of our farm products is the grass crop; and to show what has been done with grasses. need only allude to the striking change made in the entire West by the extended use of alfalfa.
 Moreover, the department has taken the lead in the effort to prevent the defor- estation of the country. Where there are forests we seek to preserve them; and prairies we are doing our best to foster the habit of tree planting among our people. In my own lifetime 1have seen wonderful changes brought about by this in the States immediately around 1t.
 Important Questions.
 There are a number of very important questions, such as that of good roads. with which the States alone can deal, and where all that the National Govern ment can do is to cooperate. with them The same is true of the education of the American farmer. A number of the States have themselves started to help in this work and the Department of Agri- culture does an immense amount which is in the proper sense of the word educa- uonal, and educational in the most prac- tical way.
 It is therefore clearly true that . great advance has been made In the direction of finding ways by which the government can help the farmer to help himself-the only kind of help which seif-respecting man will accept or, l may add, which will in the end do him any good. Much has been done in these ways, and farm life and farm processes continually change for the better. The farmer him. roundlngs and the nature of his work. to preeminent degree the qualities which we like to think of as distinctly Ameri- can in considering our early history. The man Wf1O lllAS uIS OWh WAhCthCA Ou the prairie or in the woodland, the man who grows what we eat and the raw material which Is worked up into what we wear, still exists more nearly under the conditions which obtained when the country e nation than is true of any others of our people.
 But the wage workers in our cities, like the capitalists in our cities, face totally changed conditions The development of machinery and the extraordinary change in business conditions have rendered the employment of capital and of persons in large aggregations not merely profitable but often necessary for success, and have specialized the labor of the wage-worker at the same time that they have brought great aggregations of wage-workers to- gether. More and more in our great h. dustrial centers men have come to realize that they can not live as inde- pendently of one another as in the old days was the case everywhere. and as is now the case in the country districts.
 Of course, fundamentally each man will yet find that the chief factor in determin- ing his success or failure in life Is the sum of his own individual qualities. He can not afford to lose his individual initia- tive, his individual will and power; but he can best use that power if for certain objects he unites with his fellows. Much can be done by organization, combination, union among the wage workers: finally something can be done by the direct action of the State It Is not possible em- pirically to declare when the interference of the State should be deemed legitimate ana WhNn- -MlaRifimatA