Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 100, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1911 — Brown Outlines His Plan [ARTICLE]

Brown Outlines His Plan

President of New York Central Urges Government to Spend More Money In Conservation. Galesburg, 11l. —President W. C. Brown of the New York Central was the orator at the concluding exercises of Founders’ at Knox college. He had a large audience, among whom were many farmers from this part of the state. His address was on the subject of the conservation of the soil and of the necessity of Increasing its fertility to meet the 'needs of home consumption. He urged Knox county to instruct its members in the legislature to support generous appropriations for the state agricultural college. As indicating the importance of soil study and Improvement he said: "The United States is building two or three great battleships almost every year, which cost, fully equipped, perhaps an average of $9,000,000 each, and it costs close to $1,000,000 a year each to man, supply and maintain them. “With what one of these fighting machines cost, the government could establish and fully equip two splendid experimental farms of 640 acres each in every state in the Union, to be operated by the general government. The establishment of such farms by the government would soon be followed by 160-acre farms owned and operated by the state In Avery county in our great agricultural'states. “Buch farms, once established, would not only be self-sustaining, but, in my opinion, would show a handsome profit. The effect of such a system of practical education upon the products and profit of the nation’s farms would be almost beyond comprehension. "Every thriftless and uniformed farmer would quickly note the difference between the result of his loose

methods and those of the experimental farm and benefit by the comparison. “Men who have no books on this important subject and who could find no time to study them if they had, would learn by that most apt and thorough teacher, observation, the value of improved methods and would adopt them. "Let the government invest the price of one battleship in this important work, follow the Investment up intelligently and perseveringly for ten years, and the value that will have been added to each year’s crops of the Nation’s farms will buy and pay for every battleship in all the navies of the world today."