bets the merchant a future cotton crop against a year's grub on the side. This deal is usually consummated about or before the beginning of the year, and as soon as the deal is closed the average cotton farmer cannot be induced to earn a dollar, except such as he earns under the terms of the mortgage. He seems to be satisfied as long as the coupon book lasts, and the blight seems to affect the whole family; the wife long since discouraged also depends on the credit system; she seldom comes to town with eggs or poultry to sell, although eggs often command ten or twelve dollars a case in country towns. The farmer cannot succeed under such a system; the country cannot develop; the merchant is aged before his time, a creature of chance as it were, hopeful in good seasons, despondent in bad, for as he looks backward over the history of the mortgage system, he discovers its pathway strewn with human misery and ruined merchants.

I have no apology to offer for the space taken to express my observations of the mortgage system; I know people do not like to be told of these things; I feel I would be more highly appreciated if I should write of the South as the land of the Magnolia and the Pine; the land where every son is a cavalier, every daughter a queen; the land of freedom and chivalry; but freedom and chivalry and a hard working chattel mortgage cannot dwell under the same roof.

Although the mortgage system has a strong foothold in Oklahoma, it can be abolished by some co-operation and the adoption of business methods by the farmers. A common-sense system of diversification will soon put a farmer on a cash basis. The farmer who will raise all of the necessities possible of production on an Oklahoma farm, and all the cotton he has time to cultivate, need not live in dread of the mortgage. Many farmers think diversified farming in the South means to quit raising cotton and raise onions, potatoes and other perishable crops. Nothing could be further from correct. Who would expect a farmer who could not grow such a staple crop as cotton at a profit to grow and market perishable stuff at a profit. An Oklahoma farmer can succeed growing corn to sell, after being fed to livestock, keeping a reasonable stock of well cared for poultry, and in addition grow all the cotton he has time to cultivate and gather in the best possible manner.

A study of our crop report for 1908 reveals the interesting fact that, compared at maturity in the field, an acre of corn would buy an acre of cotton and pay the rent on the land besides. This, too, in the face of an increased production of corn and a decreased production of cotton. Perhaps the fellow who believes the law of supply and demand and not "Liverpool" governs the price can explain this.

Agricultural Education

The men who wrote the constitution of Oklahoma have been referred to by some critics as "Corn Field Lawyers." If the importance attached to agriculture in the constitution inspired that title, certainly no more honorable mention is needed. In providing that agriculture shall be taught in the public schools of the State they have insured to the farmer of the future improved conditions in the broadest sense. They have done for Oklahoma what the best minds in other States are hoping may be done. It is surprising how easy it is to teach agriculture when a whole State

learns that it has to be taught. After July first, 1909, a teacher must pass an examination in Agriculture, as well as Grammar, English, or Mathematics, before receiving a certificate to teach in the schools of the State, and the teachers are alive to the situation; hundreds of them attended the course provided for them during the summer at the A. & M. College and similar interest was manifested at the Normals in the State; and with the summer of 1909 in which to further prepare themselves, I think our teachers will be well prepared to teach agriculture. Even with the limited number of agricultural works adopted to date, our schools are exhibiting a surprising interest and progress in agriculture.

I have a small boy and girl in the fifth grade in our district school, and have them frequently ask me to help them name the fruits, grasses, vegetables, etc., that do well in our State, and they have to name twenty weeds that grow in the State. They study the kind of insects and their habits, the time of planting and how to plant, and such useful things for a person to know. To me this seems a refreshing departure from the old way, which consisted chiefly of learning how much interest a dollar would earn at a given rate, or some sort of hero worship with the dollar for the hero.

Oklahoma has the most comprehensive system of agricultural education in the world today, headed by its magnificant Agricultural and Mechanical College at Stillwater, its five district agricultural schools, one to be in each of the five supreme court judicial districts, these to be preparatory to the A. & M. College, or where a young man or woman may finish a good education, well fitting him or her for the duties of life in these district schools. Then with the teaching of agriculture in the other schools of the State, leading up to those district schools, the system seems the nearest perfect ever devised, and we are certainly justified in believing that under this splendid system in the not very distant future Oklahoma will have scattered here and there on the farms young men and women who will know how. For in all this system the teaching of domestic science is a part of the system, thus fitting our young women to properly preside over a household, supported by the capable young agriculturist of Oklahoma.

Before passing from the subject of agricultural education, I deem it proper to state that the farmers of the State owe much to the first State Legislature, and to our first Governor, for by their kind co-operation and liberal appropriation we are enabled to enjoy the blessings bestowed in our State Constitution, and in behalf of the Board of Agriculture I desire to commend the efforts of Mr. Cameron, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the State Board of Education for their efforts to promote the teaching of agriculture 'n the State.

Farmers' Institutes

Next in importance to educating the youth of our State is the education of the farmer himself through our splendid system of farmers' institutes, which is explained in detail in a chapter devoted to that subject.

The farmer's duty: As this is to be a very practical book, I feel impelled to cite one duty the farmer at all times and in all places is prone to overlook, and that is the proper care of the land.

I do not believe that Mother Earth belongs to any individual or gen

eration. I think it is the duty of every generation to deliver the earth to their posterity in as good or better condition than they received it from the generation -preceding them. But this is not always done and we frequently hear of "worn-out soils" and farms abandoned in consequence. I hope this may never be said of Oklahoma, but in traveling over the State I see some farms approaching the danger line, and on some of our hill-side farms I see a spot now and then that is too poor to make brick. A grave danger threatens our State if our upland farms are allowed to be tilled bare year after year, thus allowing the soil to wash into our waterways, causing disastrous floods. We have had samples of this trouble in the recent past, and we should apply a remedy before it is too late.

We have in Oklahoma the most successful remedy for washing land. Bermuda grass will stop any kind of a wash, and will level a farm that is full of gullies; it will grow luxuriantly in pure sand, or in any kind of soil in the State. It will produce a grass crop on an acre of land so poor that a peck of corn could not be grown on the whole acre, yet this poor acre of land will support three head of cattle for seven months in the year. It is a good feed for any kind of stock. Contrary to the prevailing , opinion, it makes good hog pasture. Do not be afraid of it taking your farm. If you own a rolling upland farm, the sooner it takes half of it the better for you. Eighty acres of Bermuda grass properly handled will make you more money than you can lose cultivating the other eighty acres. Write to our Experiment Station at Stillwater for information about Bermuda as a pasture and hay crop. Bermuda is a good hay crop cut in alternate years. It may be heavily pastured the other alternate years and not interfere with the yield of hay; in fact, it improves with close pasturing.

Commission on Country Life

From time immemorial poets have sung the beauties of country life, statesmen have pointed with pride to the "Independent Farmer," as "the bone and sinew of our Nation," and all men as the years roll by and the title "Old Man" greets one quite frequently, have an inborn desire to return to the farm and country life. There are few men, indeed, who have not entertained such dreams, and the farmer himself, lulled to contentment by the plaudits of his fellowmen, has lived in the belief for centuries that he was the happiest man on earth, but the farmer, after the fashion of all other callings, has organized, and, as in all history discontent has followed close on the heels of organization, and the farmer wants things, and he wants them bad; so bad in fact that our erstwhile lethargic statesmen are sitting up and taking notice, and the President of the United States has appointed a commission to learn, if possible, what is the matter with the man with the hoe. I hope this commission will fulfill the mission. They are having hearings all over the country and will report before this is read. I know they have as many remedies offered them as there are cures for chills, but, as I see it, the greatest impediments to the progress of the farmer in the South are bad roads, bad schools, and bad debts. In Oklahoma we have provided for good

schools and our way is clear to better roads, but we may have to devise with the commission to learn how to shake the bad debts.

I see by the published accounts that a very influential member of a farmers' organization in one of the Southern States told the commission that the landlord was to blame for the poor condition of the tenant farmer. This is certainly a very misleading as well as a very unkind statement. True, the alien landlord cannot be defended because he bears none of the burdens of his neighbors and permits them to enhance the value of his property by their industry; but the resident landloard is entitled to more credit than he ever receives. How many people ever stop to think of the mission filled by the resident landlord? He is your city soup house, Salvation Army, and police all rolled into one. I have never known of an organization in a city for the purpose of sending brains, energy, or wealth to the country, but I have seen organizations for the purpose of sending city paupers to the country. There is more room for them, you know, and the resident landlord has to care for those improvident paupers, provide employment for them, protect himself and his family against criminals among them, and finally teach them to be good citizens.

While your tenant in the city never has but thirty days between him and eviction from home, the resident country landlord provides a home for his tenants for a year. He is their only hope in time of trouble, and he gives freely of his time and money to help them in the hour of need. His good wife is found at their bedside in time of sickness or death. Gentlemen of the Country Life Commission, criticize the alien landlord to your hearts' content, but spare the country resident landlord, for he is the tie that binds our country life. All others may abandon the farm at will, but he must remain, through good seasons and bad, through fire, flood, and famine. He is the most self-sacrificing citizen in America today.

FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW

By CHAS. F. BARRETT, Secretary

As a splendid example of the "before and after taking" results of Statehood and Self-government, we publish in this department the last annual report of Secretary McNabb read before the annual meeting of the Territorial Board on January 15, 16 and 17, 1907. At the time this meeting occurred the Constitutional Convention was in session and the future so far as it related to agriculture and the plan for the continuation and perpetuation of the work of the Board was entirely problematic. It was not known whether the limited powers of the Territorial Board would be diminished or increased or whether its successor was to be a vital, virile organization, thoroughly representative of the great and growing agricultural and live stock interests of the State or an emasculated Board of political supernumeraries, such as exists in many states, under the title of a State Board of Agriculture, and whose chief duty appears to be to meet once each year to hear the report of the Secretary or Commissioner.

Everywhere through this report of our predecessor and the proceedings of this last annual meeting of the Territorial Board is breathed an unconscious, though perfectly natural spirit of pessimism and doubt of the future. The old things with which they were familiar and for the success of which they had toiled, frequently under very discouraging conditions, were about to pass away, and a new order of things was to be ushered in. New men had taken up the reins of government in the name of the people and it was not known how agriculture and its kindred industries were to fare at the hands of the "Cornfield lawyers" and "political barbarians" who had been sent here by the people to wipe out the old order of bureaucratic government and "write in" the new dispensation of a government by, of and for the people. Even at the later date of November 16, 1907, after the constitution was adopted and statehood and self-government for the people of Oklahoma had become an established fact there was still doubt and gloomy forebodings in the minds of those who had borne the burden of the old regime and worked for the advancement and upbuilding of agricultural industry and development, and until the First Legislature had taken the broad foundation laid by the Constitutional Convention and erected thereon the most complete and comprehensive fabric of government for the control, encouragement and development of agriculture, agricultural education, horticulture, arboriculture and live stock - industry ever devised, and fortified the same by liberal and adequate appropriations, many of the old Board's staunchest adherents still doubted. They could not believe that a political party in overwhelming control of legislative and executive power could be so generous and far-sighted as to remove from the representatives of this great industry the last vestige