The Saint Paul globe., 1905-01-11
CITY NEWS
STATE FAIR SOCIETY
OPENS ANNUAL MEET
First Sessions of Three Day
Meeting Held in Old
Capitol


The growing greatness of Japan may
be due to the fact that the N1pponese
children have been educated on the sys-
tenn of the Minnesota public schools.
Such was an interesting and unex-
pected statement heard yesterday at the
first session of the annual meeting OF the
state agricultural society. The hundred
or more members present in the hali OF
representatives of the old capitol had
heard President G. H. Bridgman, OF Ham
line university, recite invocation. .They
had then called upon him for speech, IN
which he said:
Minnesota, as you all know, is in the
fore front of agricultural progress, but It
should not be overlooked that this state
is equally advanced In education She
has made educational displays that have
taken first rank at all the great national
and international expositions for many
years.
"At the New Orleans exposition TWEEN
ty years ago this record of our educa-a
tional exhibits began. Japanese COM
missioners attended the fair. They paid
special attention to all that concerned
educational methods
"It is not generally known, but 1t is,
nevertheless, fact, that because of those
commissioners observations the public
school system of Japan is modelled today
largely on the system of the Minnesota
schools
Gov. Johnson welcomed the society
briefly He was particularly in sympathy
with their work, he said, because he had
himself been one of them. He had not
only attended the society's annual meet
ing, but he had served as secretary and
as president of the Nicollet county fair.
He said the remarkable development Of
Minnesota was the outcome, to large
extent, of her intelligent farmers and her
agricultural prosperity
chIlds Reads Paper
The first formal paper of the meeting,
read by E. D. Childs, of Crookston, ex-
plotted comprehensively the agricultural
resources and possibilities of the Red riv-
er valley.
'There is still,'' Mr. Childs said, much
uncertainty as to the possible products
of the valley. At Crookston, for example.
an attempt has been made to utilize flax
straw by manufa cturing it into fax tow.
But the absence of factories where this
tow can be transformed has seemed to
prove that there is now but little profit
for the valley farmers in this particular.
product =
''At Crookston, also, a. company. form
ed for raising fax and manufacturing its
fiber, and this experiment has been so far
most encouraging. The value of the first
crop-raised last year-is said to be suff-
cient to pay the entire cost of the COM
panys plant and leave a surplus
farmers should experiment literally with
the raising of hemp for fiber. He said
that within five years this state could
grow enough hemp fiber to afford material
for all the binding twine made at the state
prison. The state could then sell twine
at 6 or Z cents pound with profit equal
to that now obtained at the usual prices.
AS to- the extensive work accomplished
in the way of draining the valley farms,
Mr.. Childs pointed out that the beginning
of this highly important improvement was
made as far back as 1886, when, in a con-
vention at Crookston, President James J.
Hill, of the st. Paul. Minneapolis SS Mani
toba Railway company, proposed that the
valley be thoroughly surveyed. He Of
fered, on behalf of the company to pay
half the cost of the survey, the other half
to be paid by the several counties. This
survey afforded the first evidence that the
fiattest looking farms in the valley really
sloped enough toward the Red River to
make good drainage possible.
Commencing the Crooksten substation
of the state experiment station, Mr. Childs
urged the necessity for draining more eff
fectively the state farm connected with
the substation.
Diversified Farming
Diversified farming, the speaker said,
had gained such a foothold in the valley
that many farmers who formerly raised
nothing but wheat now raise little or no
wheat.
The stock interests of the valley owed
their present prosperity to the generosity
of Mr.. Hill, who imported -bleeded bulls in
the early eighties. and gave them with
out money and without price, to the
farmers desirous of raising better stock
Creameries and cheese factories had not
generally succeeded in the valley, be-
cause such industries demanded denser
population and smaller farms with more
cows. Local conditions We're also against
sheep raising.
The improvement of country. roads and
the growth of railroad systems had put
the valley in close touch with the outside
world. The upbuilding of Eastern Mime
sofa had assured the valley a profitable
demand for all its various products The
construction of electric railways through
out the valley would before long assure
the lowest competitive rates to the
great lakes and the Mississippi. where
water competition would continue cheap
freights from the valley to all great sea-
ports
The labor problem was one Of the most
difficult questions to be solved by valley
farmers They now relied chiefly
on transient laborers, who aimed to do the
least work for the highest wages; every
years this labor was getting less reliable
and more expensive Thus the most sue
cessful farmers in the valley had come to
be those with the biggest families of chill
dren able and willing to work
Summing up the advantages of the Red
river valley Mr. Chiids estimated that, on
the average, any farm of eighty acres
there could comfortably support a family
of five persons.
Committees Announced
Committees that were to have. been
named in the morning by President c. N.
Cosgrove. of LIE Sueur, We're announced
In the afternoon. as follows:
Credentials-Charles Kenning. Osceola
w: A Miller, Preston; A. H. Bulls, Win.
gomery; George H. Hazard. St. Paul:
Wynlan Elliott. Minneapolis; A C Coop.
er. St Cloud; r. A. Wilkinson Crookston
Resolutions-J. c. Carlson, Rush City;
J. J. Furlong, Austin; C. r. Tupper
Worthington; j. L. De Lancy, Northfield
A. p. Hendrickson, st. Paul; A. w