It has, singularly enough, come to pass that we have allowed the industry of our farms to lag behind the other activities of the country in its development.  I need not stop to tell you how fundamental to the life of the Nation is the production of its food.  Our thoughts may ordinarily be concentrated upon the cities and the hives of industry, upon the cries of the crowded market place and the clangor of the factory, but it is from the quiet interspaces of the open valleys and the free hillsides that we draw the sources of life and of prosperity, from the farm and the ranch, from the forest and the mine.  Without these every street would be silent, every office deserted, every factory fallen into disrepair.  And yet the farmer does not stand upon the same footing with the forester and the miner in the market of credit.  He is the servant of the seasons.  Nature determines how long he must wait for his crops, and will not be hurried in her processes.  He may give his note, but the season of its maturity depends upon the season when his crop matures, lies at the gates of the market where his products are sold.  And the security he gives is of a character not known in the broker’s office or as familiarly as it might be on the counter of the banker.

The Agricultural Department of the Government is seeking to assist as never before to make farming an efficient business, of wide co-operative effort, in quick touch with the markets for foodstuffs.  The farmers and the Government will henceforth work together as real partners in this field, where we now begin to see our way very clearly and where many intelligent plans are already being put into execution.  The Treasury of the United States has, by a timely and well-considered distribution of its deposits, facilitated the moving of the crops in the present season and prevented the scarcity of available funds too often experienced at such times.  But we must not allow ourselves to depend upon extraordinary expedients.  We must add the means by which the, farmer may make his credit constantly and easily available and command when he will the capital by which to support and expand his business.  We lag behind many other great countries of the modern world in attempting to do this.  Systems of rural credit have been studied and developed on the other side of the water while we left our farmers to shift for themselves in the ordinary money market.  You have but to look about you in any rural district to see the result, the handicap and embarrassment which have been put upon those who produce our food.

Conscious of this backwardness and neglect on our part, the Congress recently authorized the creation of a special commission to study the various systems of rural credit which have been put into operation in Europe, and this commission is already prepared to report.  Its report ought to make it easier for us to determine what methods will be best suited to our own farmers.  I hope and believe that the