THE BUSINESS OF AGRICULTURE.
[Extracts from addresses.]
The next great factor to enlist for the betterment of Agriculture and rural life in this Nation is the business man of the town and the city. He has not always been alive to his obligations. He has contented himself, in too many instances, with plans to secure profit in agricultural trade, instead of sympathetically and eagerly planning constructive assistance. This duty, pressing in peace time, is of the most urgent and impelling character in this crisis; and I appeal to the bankers and business men to see that they omit no effort to familiarize themselves with the agencies serving to aid the farmers and to promote wise plans to secure the necessary results.
D. F. Houston, Secretary of Agriculture.
In the interest of our national development at all times and in the interest of war efficiency just now our agriculture must be well maintained. It should be remembered that the agricultural unit is a small unit. There are 6,000,000 farms in this country, each an individual unit. It is to the interest of persons who do not live on farms, even more than to the interest of those who do live on farms, that production shall be kept up. This means that all people, not farmers alone, but those who live in cities as well as the farmers, are interested in experimental and educational activities along agricultural lines as conducted by the Federal Government and the States. These efforts should be liberally supported.
R. A. Pearson, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture.
In a time like this no man has a moral right, whatever his fortune may he, to employ another man to render any service of mere comfort or convenience. When the finest young men of the United States are in France digging ditches, sawing lumber, laying rails, and playing with death, and when the finest young women of the United States are scrubbing floors in hospitals, it is a sin that almost approaches the unpardonable offense against civilization for any man or women in the United States to engage in a wasteful or unnecessary service.
Clarence Ousley, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture.
Figure 3 (p. 10) has been enhanced so that the text is legible. The image is placed in the Public Domain.