The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1908-09-18
THE FARMER IS
NOT NEGLECTED
Scientific Aid Invoked by the Gov
eminent in His Interest.
Important Results Accomplished
During the Mckinley
welt Administration.

country is all that is necessary to COM
pletely controvert the Democratic
charge that the government is neglect
ing the farmer.
During the last eleven years Presi-
dents Mckinley and Roosevelt have
aimed to bring the Department of Ag-
riculture to the help of our farmers in
all sections of the country and have III
structed the Secretary of Agriculture
to use all endeavors to help the tiller
of the soil toward greater efficiency
and more economic production; to
make the American acre more potent
in growing crops. The Congress during
the last eleven years has quadrupled
the amount of money invested in agri-
cultural research and demonstration,
to give the American farmers help in
their operations on the farm, to feed
our people well and cheaply, and en-
able them to compete with the outside
world. 1t has provided for over two
thousand scientists, specialists in their
respective lines, who are in touch with
our farmers in all sections of the
country, gathering information and
preparing it for issue in departmental
publications, of which nearly seventeen
million pieces were given out in 1907
to go into our country homes, dealing
directly with what is uppermost in the
minds of our growers Of plants and
animals at the time of publication.
nnx InrA IN
Agriculture.
The education of specialists in APP
piled science to meet the demand Tor
research under the Federal Government
and under State institutions has be-
come a prominent feature of depart
mental work. Graduates of our agri-
cultural and other colleges are drafted
into the Department of Agriculture and
prepared for scientific research along
the lines demanded by the producers OF
our country under all our varied con-
ditions. Within the last eleven years
nearly sixteen hundred young men have
had postgraduate instruction in the
sciences of agriculture. The Depart
ment of Agriculture and the State ex-
pertinent stations are actively cooper
ating with regard to unsolved prob
lens that affect the farmer throughout
our States and Territories and in the
islands of the sea that have lately
come into our possession.
New markets for our surplus prOduc-
ton are being sought in foreign coun-
tries, and scientific inquiry is being
made into the preparation of our eX-
ports for foreign markets. Uncertainty
with regard to the magnitude of our
crops at home is being removed by
careful statistical inquiry, to the end
that more accurate knowledge with re-
gard to production may mitigate the
evils of speculation. Inquiry is also
being made into the productions of
competing countries, in order that the
, American farmer may know what he
has to meet in foreign markets.
New Products for American Farms.
Strenuous efforts are being made to
encourage the home production of
articles we have been importing from
foreign countries. During the last
eleven years there has been an increase
I'm the production of sugar from beets
which makes the product of 1907,
amounting to 100000 tons, over thir-
teen times that of 1896 and it's value
fifteen times. Eleven years ago we
produced only one-fourth of the rice
consumed in the United States. The
fostering work of the Federal Govern
ment has enabled the rice growers to
produce more than the equivalent Of
our home consumption and foreign
markets are being sought for the sur
plus. There was an increase in the
production Of rice from 100000
pounds in 1896 to an average of 49,
100000 pounds during the last four
years.
Scientific research by the Bureau of
Soils demonstrates the fact that we
can produce at home the fine tobaccos
for which we have been paying over
twenty million dollars a year to for
eign countries. Our explorers have
searched foreign lands for grains, leg
umes, fiber plants, teas, ETC., for intro
duction into sections of the United
States suitable to their production.
The producing area for grains has been
extended westward into the dry re-
gions of our country through the in
PRODUCTION Of plants that are at home
where the rainfall is light. Nearly
fifty millions Of bushels of wheat are
being grown in regions that have here
tofore been unproductive
Eradication of Diseases of Farm
Animals and Products.
The Federal Government is studying
the diseases of domestic animals with
a view to their complete eradication.
Our animals and their products 60 to
foreign countries with bills of health
fitness. The American meats are the
most wholesome in the world, as the
world now knows. An imported dis
ease of domestic animals was promptly
stamped out within year at an ex.
penditure of 100000, to prevent II
from spreading throughout the country