The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1915-12-29
ADDRESS OF HON. D. F. HOUS
TON, SECRETARY OF AGRI-
CULTURE.
At The One Hundredth Anniversary
of The Pendleton'G Farmers Soci-
ETY., Pendleton, s.. c., Oct. 13,
1915.

ing the members and friends of
the Pendleton Farmers Society on
the OCCASION of the celebration of its
hundredth anniversary. am
greatly pleased that on my first WIS,
it to South Carolina, since | assumed
the duties of the office which I hold
I should have the pleasure of ap-
bearing before a Society which is
one of the oldest in the nation, and
certainly in the South, if not the
oldest. I am particularly glad to
return for a brief time to this sec
ton of the Union. I do not feel
that I come among strangers. :!
had the good fortune to spend half
nv life in this State and to do three
years of most interesting work IN
a nearby county. The conditions
however much changed since l
left here, are still not unfamiliar to
me. The hills and mountains are
the same, and many of your names
and faces are familiar. You have
numbered among your members men
of as fine character and ability as
n section of the Union can fur
nish. Many of them I have known
by reputation. Others of them l
have had the good fortune to know
personally; and among the latter,
one who was born here stands out
in my memory as one of a few men
who have exercised a most helpful
influence in my life. If any CON-
munity can furnish a man of finer
fiber, of stronger and yet gentler
character, of greater integrity and
of higher ideals than Major Benja-
min Sloan, I should like to look up
on his face. I could not forbear
taking advantage of this opportunity
to pay him this brief personal tri-
butte.
I clearly recognize the great SER
vice which your Society and those
like it have rendered in the promo
ton of agriculture and of rural
life. Such organizations have play
ed a tremendous part in directing
the attention of the nation to agri-
cultural problems and in stinulat-
ing helpful investiga alton and prac-
tees. During the greater part of
the history of the nation the su-
pervision and encouragement of
agriculture was in the hands OF such
bodies. They were pioneers, and
out of their efforts in no small meas
ure, have come the enormous, etfi-
Gent agricultural agencies of the
nation. The Federal Department
itself and the land grant colleges
are the outcome of the aspirations
and purposes of similar societies and
organizations and of the labors of
great national characters.
I have experienced difficulty IN
determining what direction my
thoughts should take today. The
occasion naturally suggests a discus
sior. of the progress of agriculture
in America and a comparison of it's
present state with that of a hundred
years ago; but a discussion OF the
former would carry me entirety 100
far afeld; and a comparison would
he fruitless and iInpractican!e Tor
the simple reason that it is impossi-
BILE to compare something with
nothing. When we recall tina: 1t
was not until twenty-five years after
the foundation of your society that
the nation began to keep statistics
of agriculture, we can readily un-
derstand what the situation was a
hundred years ago. When your
Society was founded the nation had
lust finished it's first war under the
Constitution and was beginning to
adjust itself for the greater struggle
of possessing a continent. 1t a
little time to take stock of its pos
sessions, and the data for compare
O n in the national field are mea-
ger and inadequate. Nor can l
even undertake to review the re-
markable progress your w State
had made in the field of agriculture.
NV purpose must be much more
modest and limited; and I must ask
you to consider with me agricultural
problems of the present and of the
immediate future rather than of the
past.
I must suggest a still further limi-
tation. I shall ask you to consider
for the most part other problems
than those which up to the present
nave Hldlllly ehS oeoSiAeAo
of the administrator, the legislator,
the scientist, and the practical far
mer. Up to a comparatively re-
cert time, the attention of those In
terested in agriculture was conferred
mainly on problems of production:
The slogan was, make two blades of
grass grow where one grew before.
Matters of soil fertility, plant and
animal breeding, diseases of plants
and animals, methods of cultivation,
and many other pressing problems
of production occupied almost ex-
elusive attention. There were and
continues to be production problems
of tremendous Importance, and
they must receive not less but more
attention even than in the past; but
it has come to be recognized that
agriculture is tremendously COM
plex, and that problems of distri-
button are not less important, and
are not perhaps even more complex
and difficult, than problems of pro-
duction. We have been brought
face to face with the fact that in
many directions further production