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FARHER and PLANT BREEDER.
Work of Assistant Secretary Willet M. Hays.
GUY ELLIOTT MITCHELL.
The country has realized for some
time that It has in its Secretary of
Agriculture a real farmer; its new
Assistant Secretary is likewise a
farmer, and unless all records and ap¬
pearances are false, a good one. He
has the valuable faculty of knowing
bow to do things, and at the same time
to be able to tell others how. This
Assistant Secretary Is Willett M. Hays.
Professor Hays was Secretary Wilson’s
choice for Assistant Secretary, after
Colonel Brigham’s death, and It ap¬
pears as though Professor Hays’ ap¬
pointment was unything but a political
one. There is a fine entente cordial
between these two broad-gauge men
and the work of the Department has
taken a distinct forward sweep since
Mr. Hays’ appointment. He put his
shoulder to the wheel at once and
seemed able to dispense with the usual
two or three months of “breaking in,”
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WILLET M, It A VS, ASSISTANT SECRE¬
TARY OF AGRICULTURE.
which an Assistant Secretary for a big
department usually undergoes. He ills
his environment well wherever he hap¬
pens to be. Instructing his classes in
the field at the University of Minne¬
sota, located just between the Twin
Cities, you would have suspected that
Professor Hays seldom visited St. Paul
or Minneapolis; on the other hand,
■when you see him walking along the
streets in Washington you would
scarcely expect him to be able to drop
a straight furrow. Btit in coming city¬
ward and wearing a crease in his
trousers he has not lost his straight¬
HYBRIDIZING WHEAT IN THE FIELD.
forward way of taking people at their
word and believing just what they say.
1 asked him for a photograph to ac¬
company this letter, remarking that I
would like to have one of him as he
looked as 1 last saw him “down on the
farm" (he would he arrested if he went
around Washington looking as he was
then), and he gravely responded that
he had no photograph such as I wanted,
but that he would send me one taken
at a later date.
Breeding up Plants.
The work which has made Professor
Hays most famous is his plant-breeding
\U‘
SHOWING IMPROVEMENT IN TIMOTHY
BY BREEDING.
experiments. He is the wizard of farm
plant life as Luther Burbank is of hor¬
ticulture. He has taken wheat and
bred it up, by selection and hybridiza¬
tion covering periods of five and ten
years, so that the improved strain
yields probably 25 to 30 per cent.
heavier. He has done the same with;
flax and with timothy and with corn
and tailed other farm painstaking crops. This has en-)
the most work, con
tinued year after year, but always with I
results. The average wheat
yield of the Northwestern States—
and the Dakotas—^ranges, as
I remember, from thirteen to fifteen
bushels to the acre, which is about the
average for the entire United States.
Increase this say one-fourth by simply
using this new seed, as in the case of
thousands of acres in the State of Min¬
nesota, and figure out the gain to the
country. And this is only from re¬
sults already obtained in seed improve¬
ment.
To Double the Wheat Yield.
The wheat breeding work is going
on steadily, and Professor Hays says
that he has probably not yet reached
the halt-way point in increased yield,
lrx the work of simple wheat breeding
by selection each grain is planted and
cultivated separately, a thousand of
them in rows, each one like a tree, and
then the best ten heads are selected
from those thousand plants, and the
plumpest grains again selected from
those ten heads. Then you are ready
for the planting of next year. And so
on for ten years. In hybridization
there are many more pains taken.
Here the best specimens of two differ¬
ent varieties are crossed upon each
other by band poilination and the com¬
plex system of selection simultaneously
carried on year by year. But the labor
is more than justified by the results.
Other experiments have been success¬
fully carried along under Professor
Hays with the idea of changing the
constituents of the crops—putting more
protein or maecle-producing elements
in the grain and foray? crops just as
the beet grower works to put more
sugar into his beets.
Practical Farm Teaching.
All this work is technical; it might
be the doings of the recluse. The
other side of Professor Hays’ make-up
stands forth when he gets out on a
swing ’round the circle and preaches
what he knows; wheir he distributes
literature and delivers lectures to the
farmers in halls or from the rear plat¬
forms of trains—a practical educator.
More agriculture In our national sys¬
tem of education Is his slogan, practi¬
cal farm education that will enable a
man to farm better and make more
money at it. He urges the consolida¬
tion of the small rural schools—bring¬
ing four or five of them into one good
sized school where more competent
teachers can he hired and a much
broader education afforded. The in¬
teresting thing about his boys at the
University of Minnesota was that they
were there to study plants and ani
mals and then go back to tlio farm.
They were at a college, to be sure, but
they were taking a sort of high school
agricultural course, many of them for
one or two years, and were not figur¬
ing on getting a diploma and then
leaving the farm and striking out for
city, as is unfortunately the his¬
of so many of the graduates of the
college... >
Working through the Boys,
‘Do your new methods stick with the
when they get back on the old
I asked. "How do the boys'
take it?”
“Oh, they think at first when the
go home and want to make
that we are teaching them a
of new-fangled notions. After the
year perhaps they let the boy take
try on a small scale Then with the
results shown by the trial they
more than likely to come around
the second or third year and there
apt to be quite a shaking up of
in the work on the old place.
can’t expect to make much head¬
teaching the older farmers, but
can get at them the
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A seventy-page bulletin which Pro¬
fessor Hays wrote for the Department
of Agriculture some four years ago on
the subject of plant breeding brought
his work into great prominence. In it
be outlined numerous possibilities of
nicreas:.. production of all crops
through plant breeding. Every man
knows hat the American trotting
.ter se Las -b een .wonderful ly improved
breeding. And Professor Hays
Improvement a parallel, step by step, between
of the Wealthy apple,
its history and improvement
the tree developed by Peter M.
of Minnesota, and Messenger,
imported English racing horse,
became the leading progenitor
the American racing or trotting
WHEAT ROOT SYSTEM,
horse, and he thus showed that plants
were capable of the same development
by breeding as are animals.
If you are interested in learning
something about plant breeding you
might write to your Congressman for
copy of Bulletin 29 of the Department Professor
of Agriculture, or probably
Hays himself has a few extra copies.
FROM POLE TO EQUATOR.
Arctic Explorer Now Penetrating
the Heart of Africa.
Whether in the frigid grip of the
polar country or the burning
sands of tropical Africa, the Duke of
Abruzzi seems equally at home. This
Italian scientist, who made such a high
reputation by his recent arctic explora¬
tions, has started for unknown regions
Central Africa with a fully equipped,
proposing to explore the
Mountains and cllrnb their
peaks. This range crosses the
in the vicinity of the Lakes
whence flow the waters of the
It is some eighty miles long, a
pile of Black rock hurled upward
some ancient convulsion of Nature.
The English explorer, Stanley, found
twenty years ago. It was
out to him ns a big salt moun¬
As the sun ascended, it assumed
before his view—a great moun¬
clothed in snow—and it took him
of travel to find out that it be¬
to a range. Stanley believed
the Ruwenzori range and the
of the Moon, which can be
on old maps, are Identical. Ac¬
to the old geographies, the
of the Nile rise in the Moun¬
of the Moon.
The Duke of Abruzzi has a difficult
before him to conquer the Moun¬
of the Moon, even though their
fall somewhat short of that
A large quantity of supplies must
carried on the backs of natives, and
the start will be made in the
torrid of tropical climes, the party
soon ascend Into temperate regions
then trudge for months in a truly
climate.
Milk la Your Tea.
“The use of plenty of milk with tea,”
The Lancet (London), “is a wise
and must be regarded as a
physiological proceeding, since
protelds of milk destroy astrin¬
and probably prevent the other¬
injurious action of tannin on the
membrane of the stomach. In
intestinal juice the proteids are
and the tanuin probably com¬
with the sodium salts. The im¬
drinking of tea is an un¬
evil, but, on tbe whole,
are inclined to think that the evils
tea-drinking have been exaggerated.
real difficulty is to convince people
a lightly drawn iufusion gives
their money’s worth.”
SCHOOL GARDEN WORK.
The Department of Agriculture
issuing an attractive
on school gardens. In his
Dr. Galloway, Chief of
of Plant Industry, says,
agriculture in its broadest sense
primary basis of wealth in
States, it seems essential
should be made in our
system to bring early to
of the child facts which will
value as emphasizing the
necessity of agricultural
is no better way to do this,
than through a well-managed
conducted system of school
which early awakens
an industry which means much
future prosperity of the country.
When the work of handling
free seed distribution was
to the Bureau of Plant
years ago efforts were made
interest on the part of
of Congress with large city
cies, who might be able to
the school garden movement
the distribution of specially
seed packages. Since then millions
packages of seeds have been
GROWTH OF RAILROADS.
INTERSTATE COMMERCE COM •
MISSION PLACES PAR VALUE
AT 13 MILLIONS.
More than Three Quarters of a Billion
Dollars Paid Out Annually by the
companies in Salaries to Over a
Million Regular Employees.
The annual report of the Interstate
Commerce Commission, giving rail¬
road statistics at the end of 1904,
shows the enormous total of 297,073
miles of railroad in the United
States. More recent railroad construc¬
tion has brought this figure up to
more than 300,900 miles. The num¬
ber of railroad corporations included
in the report was 2,104. That the
railroads are prosperous Is shown by
tire fact that only 1,323 miles of road
were In the hands of receivers.
The total number of locomotives in
use was 46,743 and of cars, exclusive
of those owned by private companies,
1.798.000. Of these, 39,000 were in
the passenger service and 1,092,000
engaged in hauling freight Prac¬
tically all the passenger locomotives
and cars were equipped with air
brakes and automatic couplers, and
the same was true of freight locomo¬
tives and a large majority of freight
ca rs.
The number of persons on the pay
rolls of railroads In the United
States was 1,296,000, with annual
wages and salaries amounting to
$817.598,000.
The par value of the amount or
railway capital was $13,213,124,000, or
a capitalization of $04,265 mile. *
per
Six Per Cent. Dividends.
Of the total capital stock out¬
standing, 42 per cent, paid no
dividends. The amount of dividends
declared during the year was
$221,941,000, or a little over G per
cent, on dividend-paying stock. The
number of passengers reported as car¬
ried by the railways in the year was
715.419.000. The number of tons
of freight carried was 1,309,899,000, an
increase over the previous year of over
five and one-half million tons.
UNEXPLORED PROJECTILES. [
Danger Lurks Therein-Chinese
Inquisitiveness Proves Fatal.
The dispatch coming from the Far
East of tbe killing of nearly a dozen
people by the explosion of a mine near
CUefoo, brings to light Incidents going
to show that the land in the vicinity
of Port Arthur Is a fertile field of un
exploded land mines and shells.
When the Russians were shelling
the Japanese positions near the vil¬
lage of Suishiying many shells fell In
the localities desired by the gun
pointers, hut the ordnance was of
such a defective quality that they
failed to explode. A good lot of these
projectiles have Iain where they fell,
objects of the careful investigation
and inspection of the wondering and
villagers. On one occa¬
sion a dispute arose as to the danger
in these innocent-looking pieces of
iron, and a bold native, to prove his
contortion that they were harmless,
as well as his bravery, struck one of
the missiles with a big stone. This
was going a little too far, and unfor¬
tunately he hit it on the nose, the ten¬
der spot of projectiles. It exploded
with a terrible noise, killing ten of the
interested snoctators.
Another Chinese discovered a shell
which had found a resting place In
the fresh water lake just behind the
Russian naval dockyard of Port Ar¬
thur. At that time the lake was one
mass of ice and the head of the shell
was just sticking up through the
frozen mass. John Chinaman was at¬
tracted by the shining brass screw at
the top and went out on the Ice to try
to get it off. Good metal was worth
having In the land of the Oriental,
and this is what attracted him. lie
used an old nail to remove the tempt¬
ing object. His inquisitiveness was a
dear lesson for his family, although
the pieces were never found.
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in this way in the cities, and the result
has been that much school garden work
has been organized and thousands of
pupils have learned something of grow¬
ing plants.
A small tract of land back of the De¬
partment of Agriculture Building has
been set aside for model school garden
work.
The bulletin in question has illustra¬
tions of a number of successful school
gardens in various cities, and has plans
outlined for carrying on such work.
The following interesting paragraph is
quoted from the bulletin on the work at
Hampton Institute, Virginia:
“When it was announced two years
ago to the children of the Whittier
school that they were to be taught gar¬
dening on a two-acre tract the news
was received wit., mixed feelings.
\\ hile the little ones were pleased, the
! dlder girls though it a disgrace to
work in the fields After ....... two „„„ years » ca .i =
j j a0 “Wre not a [ !< e r°k no forward pupils in with the eagerness school who to
11118 . H 5 t
j wora - -8 necessary to b« ab
j sent from school, they think it must
not be on gardening dav"
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