DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE


 CHAPTER VI

 Organizing Farmers for Business

 The farmer is a manufacturer: The soil, atmosphere,
sunshine and showers are the material to which he ap-
plies his skill, and from nature's laboratory is poured
annually into the channels of trade the materials from
which is fed and clothed the teeming millions of the
earth

 The farmer is a business man: The selling of his sur-
plus is the great paramount source of the world's com-
merce and trade. He furnishes 1,000,000,000 tons of food
annually to feed the nations of the earth.

 The farmer is a consumer of the materials turned out
by the great urban industries. He interchanges his prod-
ucts with those of other lands till all the nations of earth
are linked together into one stupendous whole.

 History is a voice forever sounding across the centu-
ries the interpretations of man. Opinions alter, manners
change, creeds rise and fall, but the law of cause and
effect is written on the tablets of eternity.

 To trace the law of cause and effect in the past for
future guidance is a task of civilization. Present condi-
tions are the composite reflection of the operation of
this law. Present tendencies are prophetic, and to prop-
erly interpret is to be forearmed and empowered to direct
the course of history.

 The farmer of today is going through a period of
transition, economically, industrially and financially.
How to adjust his methods, habits, and business to the
changing order is one of the difficult problems of the day
which he alone can solve.