COMMENCEMENT DAY ADDRESS. 
 
 BY HON. FRANKLIN E. BROOKS. 
 
 [In introducing Hon. Franklin E. Brooks, President Aylesworth spoke 
 as follows: “It is fortunate, indeed, that a Representative from Colorado 
 was appointed on the Committee on Agriculture of the last Congress. We 
 were doubly fortunate in having one represent us who is thoroughly awake 
 to the immense development and the dignity of modern scientific agriculture. 
 
 “You will recall that this college appeared before the last session of 
 Congress asking for a special appropriation of $50,000 a year for five years, 
 for the breeding of Rocky Mountain types of horses and cattle and experi¬ 
 mental feeding upon home-grown foods. It was a bold undertaking, but, 
 thanks to Mr. Brooks, our other Representatives and to our Senators, we 
 made a handsome beginning. The outlook is excellent for still more satis¬ 
 factory results at the next session. Mr. Brooks worked day and night, and 
 with rare intelligence, not only for an appropriation for this institution, but 
 for all the appropriations asked for by the Department of Agriculture. Sec¬ 
 retary Wilson has written us his thorough appreciation of Mr. Brooks’ great 
 assistance to him in securing enlarged appropriations for the Department. 
 
 “It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you this friend of the 
 Colorado Agricultural College.”] 
 
 The Department of Agriculture in its Relation to Some 
 
 Phases of Industrial Education. 
 
 Conditions change rapidly in these later days of advancement 
 and growth. There is little in the scenes of to-day to recall the 
 typical college commencement of half a century ago, with its pon¬ 
 derous “Oratio in Latina ” its emaciated valedictorian with an over¬ 
 fed soul peering through the bleared windows of an under-fed body; 
 with its President white haired and venerable, and above all with 
 the aloofness and other-worldliness that characterized too much the 
 university life of those days. There was an atmosphere and an 
 aroma of a world by itself that was not of our world; of a world with 
 its own standards and its own ends and aims very different from 
 those of the every-day world outside the academic walls. It was a 
 terrible awakening which met the dreamer of four long years as he 
 stepped from his realm of thought into the realm of action, and it 
 was but natural that close observers recognized a fundamental lack 
 in that style of university training as a preparative for active life, 
 and sought and found a remedy. 
 
 There is perhaps as little similarity between the old college 
 education and the industrial education furnished by institutions 
 such as this, as there is between this day and those I have just 
 mentioned. 
 
 2 
 
I am not criticising the old education. It did its work. It 
 laid broad and deep foundations for true manliness and great men; 
 it produced its splendid types; it did its full share in the develop¬ 
 ment of our national life, and there is still a wide field and a great 
 work for it to do in its modern form. I am simply noting differences. 
 
 New conditions have demanded new methods and have marked 
 out and determined new lines of activity. In education, as in other 
 things, “Time makes ancient good uncouth,” and here too “The 
 thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.” It 
 is perhaps well to consider very briefly a few of the results of these 
 new needs and new conditions; and inasmuch as this is, in a sense, 
 a national institution, it may not also be inapt to dwell briefly on 
 some of the features of the relation of the National Government to 
 the movement here exemplified. It may be interesting also to note 
 some of the steps that are being taken at Washington, to further 
 and assist the work which is being so admirably done at this and 
 some fifty other institutions like it in this country; to note for a 
 moment the results and to gather inspirations for new effort along 
 the same and broader lines. 
 
 It was seventy years ago that Horace Mann first saw the need 
 of a more definite relation between education and life work; be¬ 
 tween the formative and the productive periods of existence; be¬ 
 tween theory and practice, and perhaps to him we may now look 
 back as to the father of industrial education in this country. Stephen 
 Van Rensellaer had in 1824 established the Rensellaer Polytechnic 
 Institution, but this was hardly a part of the general movement. 
 After Mann came a long line of workers evolving a system of 
 training in the mechanic arts and the applied sciences. Peter 
 Cooper, Johns Hopkins, Case, Wayland, Sheffield and others were, 
 in different lines, working on the same or similar problems and 
 achieving results which are seen in the wider, broader and more 
 practical academic courses of to-day; in a greater attention to applied 
 science, and in the rise and growth of technical schools, where the 
 industrial arts and practical sciences are taught with primary refer¬ 
 ence to their relation to actual work-a-day conditions. 
 
 It is hardly strange, in view of the conservatism of agricul¬ 
 tural communities, that the great foundation of all wealth and the 
 basis of all national growth and prosperity should have been almost 
 the last subject to have received practical attention on its educa¬ 
 tional side. The culture of the ground and its allied pursuits had 
 long been eliminated from the list of callings requiring any consider¬ 
 able mental training. It had long been the acme of the ambition of 
 the prosperous farmer, who had wrested his own means and the sus¬ 
 tenance of his family from the soil, in his effort to better the condi- 
 
 3 
 
tion of his children, to send his brightest boys to college. He had, 
 however, no thought of his own life pursuit as a proper subject for 
 scientific study and elaborate preparation. His daughters were 
 largely negligible quantities so far as the educational world was con¬ 
 cerned, but in this regard they did not differ from the daughters of 
 the professional men of his day. Slowly, as the example of the 
 effect of the applied sciences was borne in on his life from other 
 lines of activity, as the condition of agricultural prosperity became 
 more complex, requiring a greater degree of thought and attention, 
 came the realization that his calling was really of the same dignity 
 and called for the same thoroughness of training as any other; and 
 so the agricultural population awoke at last to its needs and its 
 boundless opportunities. 
 
 The awakening was slow at first; the efforts to change exist¬ 
 ing conditions were sporadic, without organization, and many of 
 them ineffective, but interest was aroused and the facts of the situa¬ 
 tion became known. 
 
 It was natural, considering the fact that the agricultural popu¬ 
 lation forms the great mass of our body politic, and that from this 
 source comes the great majority of our voters, that the earlier 
 manifestations of the movement for a greater degree of intellectual 
 training to be applied to agricultural pursuits should be through 
 the State and National governments. A splendid opportunity for 
 national action existed in the wide stretches of the public domain, 
 subject to governmental disposition. The people seized that oppor¬ 
 tunity through their representatives, and our agricultural colleges 
 of to-day are but one of the many beneficial results of our method of 
 dealing with our public lands. The first great stimulus to agricul¬ 
 tural education came from a donation in 1862 by the National 
 Government to the States, of portions of these lands, for the pur¬ 
 pose of establishing agricultural colleges. This was later followed 
 by the Hatch Act in 1887, to which the national experiment stations 
 are due. The interest of the Government in the agricultural schools 
 of the country, thus evidenced, has been a fostering and increasing 
 one to this day, and the agricultural colleges and experiment sta¬ 
 tions are in much closer touch with our National Government than 
 any other similar institutions except those where our Nation’s wards 
 are trained, and the Naval and Military Academies. 
 
 For a double reason, therefore, these institutions should stand 
 for a popular education in its best sense; for that which equips 
 its recipients, intellectually and on the material side, as members of 
 the great rank and file of the body politic, to carry their share and 
 do their part in the industrial and civic development of their country. 
 The scope of these institutions is a wide one,—to lay the firm and 
 
 4 
 
deep foundations of the superstructure of our future prosperity, on 
 the only safe and unchangeable basis of our agricultural resources; 
 to open up new sources of national wealth and power, and to help 
 the agricultural classes fulfill in greatest measure their high function 
 as the great conservative leaven of the people; all this is properly 
 included. In all this, too, the first step is to train the deft hand and 
 the ready brain to self-sustaining and wealth-producing endeavor; 
 to dignify agricultural work, to put it on its true plane with ref¬ 
 erence to other lines of human activity and to demonstrate how 
 fruitful a field there is here for the highest intelligence and most 
 profound study and research. It is a work of sufficient magnitude 
 to enlist to their utmost not only individual but governmental activi¬ 
 ties. That the National Government is not blind to its importance 
 is evidenced by the great attention that is given to the comparatively 
 new Department of Agriculture; that the people are not blind to 
 its worth is evidenced by the degree of popular interest with which 
 the work of this department is followed and its results accepted. 
 
 Starting upwards of sixty years ago with the distribution of 
 some rare varieties of foreign seeds by the Commissioner of the 
 Patent Office, the department has grown until it has become the 
 one branch of governmental activity (excepting only the Postoffice) 
 which comes into most direct relations to the whole people, and 
 whose work is most directly beneficial to the masses. Elevated to 
 a bureau, under charge of a separate commissioner in 1862, it has, 
 by force of its own merit, grown in importance and influence until 
 it was, in 1889, raised to the rank of a department, with a cabinet 
 secretary at its head. This growth has been more or less in the 
 face of public indifference and sometimes something worse than 
 indifference. It is not so long ago that in semi-derision it was called 
 the “Cow Department/' and it is only under the last three admin¬ 
 istrations that its real force and power has been appreciated. This 
 has come about under the direction of Secretary Morton and his 
 most able successor, the canny Scotchman,—Secretary James Wil¬ 
 son, who for the last seven years has been at its head. 
 
 There is now gathered around that great leader of men a corps 
 of scientists which is unapproached (and I use the word carefully 
 and with no rhetorical license) by any similar body in the world. 
 Those of you who are directly connected with the administration of 
 the College know how great a work is now being done by those 
 men in and through the Experiment Stations and through the dif¬ 
 ferent bureaus. You know, too, how agricultural research and 
 investigation has been stimulated; how information has been dis¬ 
 seminated, and means of industrial study and experiment furnished, 
 until the department has become truly a great university for the 
 
 5 
 
people. But to those, who like myself had only a general knowledge 
 of this work, the record reads like fiction. 
 
 For instance, a corps of botanists so skillful and so expert that 
 their reputation is international and their advice sought from foreign 
 countries, are now working with all the resources at their disposal, to 
 solve for the farmer in a practical way, a problem which has a 
 keen interest for the citizens of this country. It is not necessary to 
 call to your attention the fact that one of the great difficulties to the 
 successful growth of sugar beets, particularly in countries where 
 we pay our laborers as liberally as we do, and should do, here, is the 
 necessity of careful and continued thinning. The great number of 
 small beet plants which come up and make this expense a necessity, 
 is due to the fact that each single beet seed contains in itself a 
 number of germ cells, as distinguished from other seeds like corn, 
 peas and beans, which are unicellular with but a single germ and 
 produce but a single plant from a seed. If, now, a beet seed can be 
 developed containing but one plant germ, the whole problem of the 
 thinning and weeding of sugar beets is eliminated, and it simply 
 becomes a question of careful planting of single vigorous seeds. 
 
 It is too early to speak authoritatively on this matter, but ex¬ 
 periments have gone so far that it can safely be predicted that such 
 a seed will be obtained in a short time. Indeed, my own belief is 
 that another year will see this result reached and I can imagine the 
 satisfaction of the Colorado beet sugar growers when it is secured. 
 
 Another class of experimenters dealing with sugar beet prob¬ 
 lems are developing an American seed, and it is pleasant to note that 
 these American-grown seeds, particularly those from the arid re¬ 
 gions, produce plants with a saccharine content more than 25 per 
 cent, in excess of that of the French and German seeds which we 
 now import at the expense of more than half a million dollars a 
 year. The result of this work of course is to make the American 
 sugar beet grower more than ever independent of his foreign com¬ 
 petitor. I am glad to say that a portion of this research is now 
 being done in conjunction with our own local institution, and a result 
 so important to our domestic interests will, in part at least, be a 
 contribution of Colorado brains and Colorado effort and endeavor. 
 
 Climatic conditions are the constant subject of most careful 
 attention at the hands of the Department. Every experiment station 
 has its meteorological observations, and the collated results are of 
 priceless value to> the agricultural interests. It may please our 
 national vanity to know that no nation in the World has a depart¬ 
 ment of meteorology in any way comparable to our own, and that 
 when our South American neighbors attempt to start upon this im¬ 
 portant work, it is to our Department of Agriculture at Washington, 
 
 6 
 
and not to any French or German school of applied sciences that 
 they send for men; but it comes more closely home to you and to me 
 to know that, in all probability, the appalling loss of life and very 
 much of the loss of property which this community suffered only a 
 few days ago, could have been averted had the Cache La Poudre 
 been equipped, as every large mountain stream should be, with 
 a National Flood and River Service. Prof. Moore, the Chief of the 
 Weather Bureau, told us in the committee that the establishment of 
 this service on the Kaw River in Kansas, would have made it as 
 easy to protect Kansas City and Topeka from the terrible loss of life 
 and property last year, as it was to protect St. Louis, where not one 
 soul perished, and where very little property was destroyed. 
 
 A short time ago, in Pittsburg alone, property was saved to the 
 people of that city worth several times the entire annual cost of the 
 whole Department of Agriculture, with its numerous branches, and 
 yet so quietly and unostentatiously is this work carried on, that the 
 people hardly realize that it is being done at all, and they accept the 
 enormous benefits conferred, like the air they breathe, as a part of 
 the ordinary routine of life. 
 
 You will be interested to know that among the new appropria¬ 
 tions of the last session of Congress was one for the establishment 
 of this service in the Kaw Valley, and that Colorado also came in 
 for her share, in the establishment of a complete weather signal sta¬ 
 tion on the Las Animas at Durango; and I hope that the day is not 
 far distant when the terrible menace to life and property which 
 exists along all these mountain water courses, will be minimized at 
 least by adequate governmental supervision, as a part of the great 
 national system of meteorological investigations. 
 
 We are beginning to learn that too much water is quite as bad 
 as not enough; that our present supply is in many cases being waste- 
 fully squandered; that hidden sources of supply lie in many places 
 beneath our very feet, in subterranean water courses which only 
 need location and intelligent effort in pumping to render them avail¬ 
 able ; that systematic drainage in many localities is, or should be, 
 constantly associated with irrigation, and that the rise of alkaline 
 deposits is but the result of unskilled use of water. These and 
 many similar problems which the individual farmer could solve, if 
 at all, only after long years of costly and discouraging investigation, 
 with many heart-breaking failures, are now being carried on, far bet¬ 
 ter than they could be by individuals, through the instrumentality 
 of the Agricultural Department. Again, it is grateful to our State 
 pride to know that this work is being directed with rare skill and 
 intelligence by a Colorado man who learned irrigation here at Fort 
 Collins and who was an early teacher in this institution. I need not 
 
 7 
 
say that the work is well done when I recall to your notice that it is 
 being done by Prof. Elwood Meade, who is now claimed by the 
 avaricious little commonwealth on the north,—the State of Wy¬ 
 oming. 
 
 Important and beneficial as the National Irrigation Act is, and 
 potent as it may be for the future greatness of this region, it will 
 be ony partially efficient, and its results will be but a fraction of 
 what they should, and otherwise would be, unless the users of water 
 learn that irrigation is an art and that its practice varies with an 
 hundred local conditions and circumstances. The extension of the 
 use of water for irrigation purposes is bringing with it, constantly, 
 new problems and new fields for investigation. To teach these 
 lessons and to solve these problems is the work of the Bureau of 
 Irrigation Investigation, a part of whose work during the coming 
 season is to be done in the Arkansas and San Luis Valleys in this 
 State. Prof. Meade is also devoting much attention to subterraneous 
 waters under the arid lands in the eastern part of the State, and 
 the prospects for success are excellent. 
 
 The work of the Bureau of Plant Industry is fascinating in its 
 details and marvelous in its results. Some of these I have already 
 mentioned. Its chief, Dr. Galloway, tireless in the interest of his 
 department, is thoroughly conversant with the needs of every section 
 of the country, and all sections have reaped the fruits of his work. 
 
 The original tree from which was propagated all the seedless 
 oranges of the country now stands and is still bearing fruit on the 
 Arlington farm grounds of the department. The physicists of the 
 department found that the same soil, chemically considered, on which 
 grew the famous “Sumatra leaf tobacco” was also to be found in the 
 Connecticut Wiley. Careful tests were made under the direction 
 of the bureau officers in connection with the Connecticut experiment 
 station. It was found that this tobacco could, with proper care, be 
 grown on the Connecticut soil, and to-day the Sumatra wrapper as a 
 direct result of the department’s efforts, is grown successfully there 
 on a large scale, adding to the value of the products of that valley 
 millions of dollars per annum. Similar investigations in connection 
 with the soil surveys have demonstrated that Cuban tobacco can be 
 grown in certain sections of Georgia and Alabama and the Carolinas. 
 New and more prolific varieties of cotton have been introduced; 
 varieties which resist the “wilt’' by virtue of a quality in the plant 
 which acts as a poison to the insect which causes it, have been dis¬ 
 covered and the value of this great staple, so important to a full 
 third of the people _of the United States, has been increased marvel¬ 
 ously. Plant blights and diseases are being treated scientifically 
 with great ability and remarkable success. Their causes either in 
 
 8 
 
fungus growth or unfavorable conditions are studied and ascer¬ 
 tained and then dealt with as skilfully as diseases of the human 
 system are treated, and along similar lines. Frost-resisting fruits 
 and hardy plants have been developed. A great work has been 
 done, and is being done, in stimulating interest in forestry and culti¬ 
 vating the aesthetic sense by the distribution of rare and beautiful 
 foliage trees. In our own region hardy grasses and forage crops 
 have been introduced, and this year large amounts of seed of hardy 
 plants and grasses have been sent to the high altitude counties for ex¬ 
 periment. We shall watch these experiments with great interest. I 
 believe that very valuable results will be obtained and that the agri¬ 
 cultural possibilities of our high altitude sections will be very much 
 increased. If nothing else has been accomplished by this bureau, the 
 introduction of the macaroni wheat would be a sufficient result to 
 earn for its officers the gratitude of the arid regions. It is being 
 demonstrated by actual results that this wheat, brought from the 
 steppes of Russia by the department will, in these regions, thrive 
 with eleven inches of moisture without irrigation, and average, under 
 proper conditions, from twenty to thirty bushels to the acre. A 
 recent bulletin from the department says that Yuma County, Colo¬ 
 rado, grows the finest wheat of this variety in the United States. 
 It has a food value equal, if not superior, to the ordinary wheats, 
 and its introduction has brought with it the establishment of another 
 American industry in the manufacture of American macaroni. 
 
 The most surprising feature of the work of this bureau is that 
 of the discovery of the nitrogen fixing bacteria. It was Franklin 
 who drew the lightning from the clouds and initiated all the won¬ 
 ders of modern electrical science. It has remained for the Depart¬ 
 ment of Agriculture, by the culture of a germ, in a manner similar to 
 that in which the various anti-toxin germs are developed, to control 
 scientifically the drawing from the air of the nitrogenous elements 
 necessary for plant life. With a few drops of water laden with 
 these bacilli sprinkled over the seeds it is possible to replenish the 
 fields worn out with years of cropping, and enormously increase the 
 productiveness of the crops. 
 
 We have all known how valuable alfalfa, the clovers and the 
 leguminous plants are in restoring worn-out lands. We have 
 known, in a general way, that this was the result of the fact that 
 these plants, through their tendrils, drew from the atmosphere 
 their stores of nitrogen which they deposited at their roots, and 
 thereby gave to the soil the elements necessary for the production 
 of plant life. We did not know that this was done through a 
 parasitic organism which developed on the small tubercles which 
 formed at the joints on the roots of these plants, and that the 
 
 9 
 
greater the number of bacteria the greater the power of the plant to 
 absorb the nitrogen and fix it in the ground. These small bacteria 
 can be grown, and are grown in the laboratories of the department, 
 and their power to absorb and fix nitrogen is increased by a process 
 exactly similar to that by which the virulence of the bacillus of hydro¬ 
 phobia is reduced until it can be injected with safety into the human 
 system. After development and propagation to the requisite de¬ 
 gree they are sent out to experimenters in little tubes. When 
 placed in the ground they serve the purpose of most valuable fertil¬ 
 izers by increasing their number with enormous rapidity and thus 
 placing in the soil, for the use of plant life, large stores of nitrogen. 
 Enough to furnish fertilizing matter for seeds for several acres is con¬ 
 tained in two tubes the size of one's finger and about three inches long 
 in which are the requisite substances for this development. A cul¬ 
 ture is made from the contents of these tubes which is in the form of 
 a yeasty solution, and contains in itself the power of reproduction 
 of the organism to a great extent. Seeds are sprinkled with this 
 solution and then planted, and when the first root sprouts start, the 
 bacteria attaching to them form the tubercles, the organisms in¬ 
 crease in great numbers, and the work of drawing on the atmospheric 
 supply of nitrogen and applying it to the development of vegetable 
 life is begun. 
 
 Crude attempts were made, some years ago, to accomplish 
 this result by introducing earth laden with bacteria, from for¬ 
 eign countries; the Germans also made attempts at cultures which 
 were unsuccessful, but the experiments which I have just alluded 
 to are the first which have been of commercial value along these 
 lines. The Department of Agriculture, therefore, for the benefit of 
 the farmers and of the agricultural interests of this country, is to-day 
 availing itself of, and practicing successfully the identical method 
 of investigation and scientific work which goes on in bacterio¬ 
 logical laboratories, and which we have come to regard with mingled 
 awe and amazement. Moreover, they have put their results into 
 such a practical and tangible form that there is not a ranchman in 
 the State of Colorado who cannot, on his own behalf, successfully 
 develop the same cultures for his own individual use. This discov¬ 
 ery, which has now reached a practical and commercial stage, bids 
 fair to absolutely revolutionize some branches of agricultural work. 
 
 More important in some ways even than this, is the work that 
 the bacteriologists of this department have just done in a notable 
 contribution to sanitary science, and if the results prove as import¬ 
 ant as they promise to be, a long stride has been taken in a direction 
 of safeguarding the public health. 
 
 The deadly bacillus of typhoid fever has long been known and 
 
 io 
 
recognized. It has now met its destroyer and this destroyer has 
 come, not from the great medical schools at Cambridge, Philadelphia, 
 New York or St. Louis; not from the laboratories connected with the 
 great hospitals of the land, but from the ranks of the underpaid and 
 overworked scientists of the Department of Agriculture. You 
 know well the green scum which frequents reservoirs and other 
 places where standing water remains in the summer months; the 
 long green fibers and filaments called algae, which are a low form 
 of vegetable life and render the water unsightly, malodorous and 
 noxious. These algal organisms are closely associated with various 
 bacterial growths and are frequently the home and breeding place 
 of the typhoid germ, as well as that of myriads of mosquitoes which 
 are now recognized as one of the greatest disease-spreading agencies 
 which we have to contend with. 
 
 The close association between typhoid fever and kindred dis¬ 
 eases and the diminished and contaminated water supplies of August 
 and September has become proverbial, and the prevalence of moun¬ 
 tain fever now recognized as only a low type of typhoid has been 
 traced to the same sources and causes. 
 
 One of the department pathologists, in seeking a means of clear¬ 
 ing water cress beds of these disease-breeding bacteria, found that a 
 few drops of solution of copper sulphate carefully administered in 
 proper proportions destroys the algal growth, sterilizes the water 
 and makes it clear and wholesome. The scum disappears, the germs 
 are dead, and the song of the mosquito is lulled. The next step 
 was to apply the same remedy to water supplies and it was quickly 
 and successfully done. It is a simple thing, but it seems to have 
 removed at a stroke the greatest cause of rural unsanitary conditions, 
 and of contamination of urban water supplies with which we have 
 to deal. The boards of health and water departments of the great 
 cities are giving much attention to this work and it gives every 
 promise of being successful. How much suffering, sorrow and 
 death will be avoided by this simple means thus discovered we can 
 now only conjecture. It seems certain, however, that another great 
 contribution to the sum of human knowledge has been made, and 
 that this department, already famous, is to receive still greater dis¬ 
 tinction from the work of its representatives. 
 
 The Bureau of Animal Industry has long been carrying on a 
 work, largely through the experiment stations, of great importance 
 to the people. The live stock interests are under the greatest obli¬ 
 gations for assistance rendered, and this obligation is increasing. 
 I thoroughly believe, however, that nothing which the department 
 has done or will do will prove of greater interest or value to our 
 people than the experiments in animal feeding and breeding soon to 
 
be inaugurated at this station. It is certainly a reflection on Ameri¬ 
 can industry and enterprise that thus far we have done practically 
 nothing toward developing any distinctive type of domestic animal. 
 We have exterminated the only wild animal, indigenous to the coun¬ 
 try which offered any possibility of domestication, in the Bison. 
 Our cattle are Scotch, English or Dutch and still carry their foreign 
 distinctive names. Our sheep are Spanish or English, and likewise 
 are still so named. Our horses are Flemish or British, with some¬ 
 times an Arabian blend, although our wild range ponies possess 
 desirable qualities sought for in vain in their more aristocratic 
 cousins. Our swine are grown from imported stock, and even our 
 scrubby little beast of burden—the Rocky Mountain Canary—is 
 Andalusian. Here is certainly a wide field for effort, and I have 
 faith that American and Colorado genius, turned in this direction, 
 will yet produce on these sun-kissed fields, horses the strongest and 
 finest, cattle the hardiest and the most remunerative, and other 
 domestic animals ideally suited to their conditions, without calling 
 upon foreign breeders for help. 
 
 These are but a few instances of the practical side of the activi¬ 
 ties of the Department of Agriculture, and they serve to show the 
 scope of work. Many of these wonderful results have been worked 
 out directly in connection with the experiment stations. Knowl¬ 
 edge of these results, put in popular form with suggestions for their 
 application, has been widely disseminated and rendered available 
 through the Bureau of Publication. One cannot treat properly the 
 work of this department without a word as to what Dr. Hill of this 
 bureau is doing. The volume of carefully edited and wonderfully 
 valuable literature which is being collated and rendered available 
 through this means is not appreciated in any adequate degree. It 
 is in this way that the laboratory work, so to speak, carried on at 
 the experiment station has been kept constantly in touch with the 
 authorities at Washington, and through them has been brought home 
 to the people. 
 
 I violate no confidence, however, and disclose no secrets when 
 I say, that it is the hope and intention of the department and those 
 interested in its advancement, that the co-operation between the 
 Washington headquarters and the local Experiment Stations may 
 in the future be far more close and complete than it is now. It is 
 hoped that thereby, through a greater number of men working along 
 similar lines, greater accuracy of results may be obtained, valuable 
 time saved and that the results when achieved may be more rapidly 
 and thoroughly disseminated. It is hoped by the authorities, that 
 the students in the class-rooms and laboratories of the colleges 
 may, as they spend the months and years of their student life 
 
 12 
 
among surroundings like these, acquire positive sources of knowl¬ 
 edge which will be helpful to them in their work, and also the 
 habit and ability to conduct independent investigations, and that 
 they may be intellectually equipped therefor. In this way they will 
 be able to carry with them into actual life the power to solve, for 
 themselves, at least some of the problems that will confront them. 
 
 The department is, therefore, as I have said before, year by 
 year becoming more and more a great National university of indus¬ 
 trial education, a great storehouse for the people, from which they 
 may draw supplies of information and suggestion, and from which 
 they may receive guidance and helpful direction. 
 
 And yet these results are being accomplished at a cost so 
 small as to be surprising. An annual tax of about 7.5 cents per 
 capita is all that this great work costs the people. The appropria¬ 
 tions for the Department of Agriculture for the current year aggre¬ 
 gate less than six million dollars, less than the cost of a single 
 complete battleship. The postoffice appropriation bill carried for the 
 same period $172,574,998, the civil list $57,846,911, the army bill 
 $77,°7°,3°°, an ^ yet all of these appropriations are cheerfully and 
 readily met, and are warranted by the facts and conditions of our 
 National growth. 
 
 No one questions the wisdom or necessity of their expenditure, 
 least of all the great agricultural industries of the country. The 
 time is soon coming, however, when the Department of Agriculture 
 must ask for larger supplies, and I urge upon you as citizens 
 to bear in mind the immense value of this work, and at the proper 
 time to voice your convictions to your representatives. 
 
 We are proud of the agricultural station at Fort Collins. We 
 rejoice at what it has accomplished, and yet there is another side. 
 It is true here as elsewhere, that “as ye sow, so shall ye also reap.” 
 We have a duty yet to do as citizens of this State. Our State appro¬ 
 priations carry nothing for the support of the Experiment Station as 
 such, notwithstanding all the immense good that it has done and is 
 doing. I was frequently made painfully conscious of this fact. 
 
 Whenever I made a suggestion that this or that appropriation 
 for experiment station work was a valuable one for the State of 
 Colorado and urged its adoption, I was met at once with the query 
 “What is your State doing?” I had to defend myself as best I 
 might by showing that in fact the State was doing a great deal for 
 the Experiment Station because of its liberal appropriation for the 
 Agricultural College, but we suffer sadly by comparison with many 
 other States, and it is in these States that the people get the greatest 
 good and the results of the work of the department are most marked. 
 
 y 
 y 
 
 13 
 
Prominent among these States which have in recent years made 
 liberal appropriations for experiment stations are, Illinois, appro¬ 
 priating $54,000 in 1902 and $85,000 in 1903; Iowa, $55,000 in 
 1902; Minnesota, $42,000 in 1902; Kansas, $32,000 in 1902; Wis¬ 
 consin, $150,000 in 1902 and $14,000 in 1903. 
 
 These are by no means the only States that have dealt lib¬ 
 erally, and while the appropriation in some cases has gone for build¬ 
 ings, in which regard Colorado has also been liberal, usually they 
 have been for general scientific work. 
 
 The results sustain the general proposition. The Illinois sta¬ 
 tion has repaid these sums many times over already by its studies 
 in seed corn. It has decreased the size of the cob, and increased 
 the size and number of the kernels. It has gone further and has 
 changed the chemical constituents of the corn itself. It has re¬ 
 duced the excessive amount of hydrocarbon or fat-producing part 
 of the kernel, and increased the amount of protein and nitrogenous 
 elements which go to make up sinew and muscle and support ner¬ 
 vous action. The increased annual value of the corn crop to the 
 farmer because of the work of these scientists, considering the 
 amount, salability and potential value of the crop, is to be reckoned 
 only in millions. 
 
 The work of the Iowa station in developing meat and milk- 
 producing plants has been priceless to the great dairy interests of 
 that State and the people know and appreciate it. 
 
 From the State of Kansas, and from the results of moneys paid 
 to the sub-stations by the taxpayers of that State, we here in Colo¬ 
 rado have derived much benefit in added knowledge of plants for 
 our arid regions, foremost among which is the Kaffir corn. 
 
 In Minnesota, the station’s work challenges admiration. By de¬ 
 veloping a variety of wheat with extra rows of kernels an increase 
 of fifteen to twenty per cent, in the production is made possible and 
 practicable. When we consider that the addition of a single grain 
 of wheat per head through the United States is estimated by com¬ 
 petent judges to mean fifteen million bushels per annum, it is diffi¬ 
 cult not to become over-enthusiastic. 
 
 It is hard to select from the work which the Wisconsin station 
 is enabled to carry on because of the State appropriations, or to 
 properly select representative subjects for comment. The applica¬ 
 tion of formaldehyde as a remedy for the disease in oats called 
 "smut” is perhaps the most important in pecuniary results. Com¬ 
 petent judges state that this remedy saved the farmers of that State 
 last year five million dollars. Yet the total sum included in both 
 the State and Federal appropriations for the same period was only 
 $29,000, and for the two years covered by the estimates above, 
 
 $j 94,000. 
 
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 14 
 
Is there not enough here to make us very hopeful, and also to 
 induce us from simply selfish reasons as citizens of Colorado to be 
 very liberal in our State appropriation? The farmer's prosperity 
 is everyone's prosperity, and unless he prospers no one else in the 
 community can long prosper. 
 
 We must not, however, entirely lose sight of the fact that 
 there is another side to the question which we have been discuss¬ 
 ing; that mere utilitarian and pecuniary results are not everything; 
 that this is an educational institution; that education is drawing out 
 that which is within the student and not simply acquisition; that 
 it is an evolution and a growth. We are here developing character 
 and all that goes with it and are preparing for life in its fullest 
 sense with all its phases and all its duties. That man is not educated 
 in any true sense of the term who is equipped merely as a dollar- 
 getting machine, whether he gets his dollars in Wall Street, as a 
 railroad manager, or as tiller of fields, so long as his soul is starved, 
 his mental development dwarfed and the aesthetic and ethical sides 
 of his nature undeveloped. That woman fails lamentably of any 
 true education who has been instilled with the idea that material 
 prosperity or financial consideration are sufficient ends in themselves 
 and who is destitute of the finer and nobler graces of culture that 
 have made the American woman what she is and what we trust she 
 always will be. 
 
 I am glad, therefore, as I look over the courses of study of 
 this institution and learn of its work, to find that the “humanities" 
 are so well represented and to know that they are so admirably 
 taught; that Art, History and Literature with their refining and 
 broadening influences, are not forgotten; that the modern languages, 
 opening up their wide fields for study and intellectual growth, have 
 their share, and that there is also a place for the “great tongue of 
 Rome." 
 
 It is well for the agricultural enthusiast to know, as he will 
 know from his history of Agriculture, that Virgil gained his earlier 
 fame as a poet by his agricultural verse, and that he was an enthusi¬ 
 ast in such subjects; that Horace, the great lyric poet of his time, 
 turned always with delight to his crops and his Sabine farm, but 
 it is also well that they should know something of the work of 
 these men as men; and that they should come in touch with the lives, 
 the forces and the civilization of the great epoch in which they 
 lived. It is well that the student should know that Rosseau, the 
 great philosophic writer of the early days of the French Revolution 
 was a lover of nature and communed with her in her rural phases, 
 but they should also gain some insight into the causes, manifestations 
 and outcomes of the greatest social upheaval of modern times. 
 
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3 0112 105736364 
 
 Tolstoi in the fields is an interesting and inspiring figure to the 
 agriculturist, but the agricultural student loses the greatest lesson 
 from the life of the man who does not know the philosopher, philan¬ 
 thropist and publicist through his work and writings in other fields. 
 The father of this government should appeal to them not only as a 
 farmer and one who gained both pleasure and profit from his tilling 
 of the soil, but they should also obtain, and carry away with them a 
 clear understanding of the great outlines of the character unrivaled, 
 of the soldier, statesman and patriot. 
 
 In a word, it is for citizenship and for life among men and 
 women, that the young men and women who are graduating to-day 
 have been fitting themselves, and all that makes that citizenship 
 more noble and gives to it higher aims and aspirations; all that 
 makes that life broader, richer, more satisfying to themselves, and 
 more helpful to their associates, should receive careful and constant 
 attention. That the State Agricultural College of Colorado is doing 
 its full duty by its students and the public in these particulars, we 
 who are here to-day have no question and no doubt; that it will be 
 enabled to serve these interests much more adequately and efficiently 
 in the future by reason of added opportunities, facilities and public 
 support, is the earnest hope of us all; and it should be and I am 
 sure will be the subject of our persistent effort to realize this hope. 
 
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