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 cooeperative
effort, in quick touch with the markets for food-stuffs. 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
dis