agricultural education who has not been trained in rural social science,
and who does not recognize the bearing of this wide field of thought
upon the business of farming as well as upon American destiny.

Research, too, will be touched with the social idea. The men who study
conditions existing in rural communities which have to do with the real
life of the people--the effects of their environment, the tendencies of
their habits and customs--will need as thorough preparation for their
work, and the result of their efforts will be as useful as that of the
men who labor in field and laboratory.

But the most profound consequence of recognizing the social side of the
farm question will be the new atmosphere created at the agricultural
colleges. These institutions are fast gaining leadership in all the
technical questions of agriculture--leadership gladly granted by
progressive farmers whenever the institution is managed with
intelligence and in the spirit of genuine sympathy with farming. But
these colleges must minister to the _whole farmer_. They must help the
farmer solve all his problems, whether these problems are scientific, or
economic, or social, or political. And let it be said in all earnestness
that in our rapidly shifting industrial order, the farmer's interest in
the political, social, and economic problems of his calling is fully as
great as it is in those purely scientific and technical. And rightly so.
A prime steer is a triumph. But it will not of itself keep the farmer
free. The 50-bushels-of-wheat acre is a grand business proposition
provided the general industrial conditions favor the grower as well as
the consumer. When our agricultural colleges enter into the fullest
sympathy with all the rural problems, when the farm home and the rural
school and the country church and the farmer's civic rights and duties
and all the relations of his business to other industries--when these
questions are "in the air" of our agricultural colleges, then and then
alone will these colleges fulfil their true mission of being _all things
to all farmers_.

CHAPTER XV

THE NEEDS OF NEW ENGLAND AGRICULTURE

One might name a score of important activities that should be encouraged
in order to better New England agriculture. But the two fundamental
needs are (1) adaptation and (2) co-operation.

By adaptation is meant such development of agriculture as shall more
fully utilize existing physical and commercial con