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Show THE GOVERNMENT AND THE FARMER. t In his message of January 31 to the farmers of America, President Wilson points out the great governmental agencies and instrumentalities in the field of agriculture. Our Department of Agriculture, he states, is the greatest practical and scientific organization in the world and its total annual budget of four to six million dollars has been increased during the last four years more than 72 per cent. Its staff numbers num-bers 18,000 and includes many highly trained experts. The agricultural agri-cultural colleges and experiment stations of the country have a total endowment of plant equipment of $172,000,000 and an annual income of more than $35,000,000. Ten thousand two hundred and seventv-one teachers with 125,000 students, together with a vast number receiving instruction at their homes, evidence what is being done in the way of agricultural training, and to these may be aciaed the Mob men and women working under the Smith-Lever Act. The banking leigslation of the last two or three years, the President shows, has given the farmers access to the great lend-able lend-able capital of the country and through the Federal Reserve banking bank-ing system and the Farm Loan banking system farmers can obtain ob-tain the credit, both short and long term, to which they are entitled en-titled and which it is imperatively necessary should be extended to them to enable them to perform adequately the tasks the country coun-try now requires of them. The President touches on another aspect of the relations between be-tween the farmers and the Nation "The toil, the intelligence, the energy, the foresight, the self-sacrifice, and devotion of the farm- ers of America will, I believe, bring to a triumphant conclusion this great war." |