The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1912-04-12
Fifteen Years Work For The
Farmers of The United States.

Each of the three Presidents whom
Secretary of Agriculture Wilson has
served has been a consistent friend OF
the Department of Agriculture. Par
ticularly is this apparent in the attitude
of the Chief Executives during the
past five years. During that time the
previous patient and arduous work OF
Secretary Wilson, his years of planning,
his development and banding together
about him of great force OF scientists,
have been showing tremendous results
for good in the life of the Nation. AT
the very outset of his administration.
President Taft, calling attention in his
inaugural address to the deficit then
existing in the revenues and the con-
sequent necessity for rigid economy IN
expenditures, singled out this depart
ment as the first of several objects
curtailment in the appropriations for
which would be disastrous. He said,
.In the Department of Agriculture the
use of scientific experiments on large
scale and the spread of information
derived from them for the..improvement
of general agriculture must go on.
This view the President has steadfastly
maintained, taking occasion in his
messages to Congress to urge the ap-
propriations asked for by Secretary
Wilson to further the great purposes
of the the department.
The reports made to the Secretary
show that the department now SENDS
out daily and weekly forecasts OF
weather and temperatures covering
the whole country. By the press, by
telegraph by mail, and by telephone
the forecasts reach every hamlet in
the land; by telephone alone they reach
eour and half millions of people, main
" on the farms. When frost, flood,
or hurricane impends timely notice is
given the region threatened. Warn
ings of single hurricance have been
known to detain in port shipping
valued at $50, 900, 900, and those of on
cold wave to result in preventing the
destruction of nearly 81, 100000 worth
of properly. Fruit growers and those
engaged in the sugar, cranberry, and
earl v truck industries now regard the
warnings as Indispensable. Climatic
data gathered for years enable the de-
partment to advise accurately any man
who contemplates living in a given
regi on; this, indeed, is true of other
data as those on. soils, on vegetation.
on livestock growing, on the availability
of m arkets, on the opportunities for
education, on the prevalence of insect
pests, and on the character of the roads.
In 1906 Secretary Wilson became
convinced that southern cattle ticks,
causing loss of from forty to ninety
millions year, could be exterminated.
Congress gave the money and the de-
partment has already eradicated the
ticks from 10000 square miles, an
area larger than Georgia, Alabama, and
and Mississippi combined-enhancing
the value both of cattle and of land.
Under other live stock laws the depart
ment has cleared large areas in the
West of sheep scab and cattle mango.
In 1908 it stamped out with most
satisfactory thorodghness and celebrity
an outbreak of -and-mouth disease
that, unchecked, would in short order
have damaged inculculably the live
stock of the country. Hog cholera, for
which they have been myriad socalled
remedies, and none of them of value,
has yielded to serum perfected by a
scientist of the department and patent
ed in the name of the American people.
Attacked in the laboratory and in the
| field by every device known to science,
| tuberculosis, the most deadly of animal,
as of human, diseases, will in time
likewise yield, although there is much
| and strenuous work yet to be done.
Showing the farmer scientific methods
| of breeding and feeding his horses,
cows, hogs, sheep, and poultry is pro-
ducing increased profits, as are also the
lessons given him on producing, hand
ling, and selling his milk and other
dairy products.
Whenever insects attack the crops
the dismayed agriculturist need not
despair. An appeal to Secretary Will
| son will bring practical advice if the
pest is known, and if it is new an ex-
pert scientist starts hot-foot for the
scene. Careful microscopic study fol-
lows, fumigation and spraying are tried,
and if these fail, off to foreign lands
goes our scientist where, perhaps, in
an out-of-the-w corner he finds par
asite that will prey upon the pest and
| keep it down to harmless numbers.
! No insect was ever studied more close
| w than has been the boil weevil by the
| department, and the system upon
which the growers in infested States
P, are now succeeding in raising cotton in
i spite of the weevil is based upon these
studies. To fight the devouring moths
of New England the department has
imported nearly 300, 200 shipments of
parasites which have held the pests in
check and promise eventually to de-
stroy them, Insects cause as much
damage to the forests as do fires, and
in five years the department has dem
| onstrated that this damage can be pre-
vented at a cost which comes well
within the range of profitable business
management 1t has fought success
fully the thrips which threatened the
pear, peach and other fruits on the
Pacific coast; standardized and cheap
ened the processes of fumigation
against scale insects; routed the grape
root worm and the insects that damage