ANNUAL MEETING TERRITORIAL BOARD OF

AGRICULTURE

Report of C. A. MCNABB, Secretary, January 15, 1907

The year just closed has been a decidedly busy one in our department. The volume of business has steadily increased, taxing our forces to the extreme limit to handle it. While in the aggregate the results of our efforts have been fairly satisfactory, we can now see where a slight alteration of plans would have no doubt produced better results.

The chief handicap or hindrance to the accomplishment of the best results lies in the lack of sufficient available funds with which to carry out what is abundantly evident the thing to do. I have reference more particularly to the institutes, the foundation upon which the Agricultural Department of the Territory is built.

Institutes

Beginning on September 24th and closing December 15th there were held, under the direction of your Secretary, annual meetings of County Institutes in twenty-three of the counties of the Territory. Dates were set for meetings to be held in the remaining three counties, but inclemency of the weather prevented two of them being held, while inability to procure a suitable room for the meeting caused a failure in another instance. Meetings will yet be held in these counties before the close of the winter. A good corps of lecturers were in attendance at each meeting, kindly supplied by the A. & M. College and Experiment Station. Wherever a fair attendance was procured, the institutes were a marked success in every way, but where little interest was shown proportionately less good was accomplished and quite naturally, proportionately less incentive was there to get the best effort from any lecturer.

During the annual meetings alone there were held, all told seventy-five sessions at which there was a total attendance of 5,195, or an average of seventy persons in attendance at each session, Kay County leading with an attendance of 1,450 in five sessions. Cleveland County furnished the least attendance-fifteen persons and one very poor session. In fact the greatest number present at any time during the session was eight. Everybody seemed in a great hurry and could not tarry long enough to warm their chairs. It was finally given up as a bad job, officers and delegates were elected and adjournment was taken.

I will not at this time enter into any lengthy detail of cause for apparent lack of interest in some counties, nor the offer of a remedy for the ills, beyond the statement that the farmers in some localities simply do not know what an Institute is intended to accomplish, and to get

them to realize what it will certainly do for them we must be able to get closer to them than our present means allow.

The institutes were much better attended this year than they were last year and there was an altogether different air surrounding them. The farmers themselves taking right hold of the meetings with the evident determination to get the best out of them. We must have township meetings, held in school houses, where it will be possible to interest the farmers of the neighborhood at least. The constitution of the county organization should provide for a township vice president, who should be selected with a view of choosing one who would interest himself in the work to the extent of interesting all the farmers of the township.

The annual meetings of the county organization should be held at different places in the county. As it is now, the law requires the annual session to be held in the county seat. In several cases a more inappropriate place for holding a meeting could not be found in the county.

In reading the farmers' institute history of other states, where the highest success has been attained, I find that their early efforts along this line were even more discouraging than are ours, and that we have progressed in the short space of three years much better than did most of the states in twice that length of time, and too, with little or no aid by way of state appropriation.

When the Legislators of our great agricultural commonwealths finally were awakened to the importance of encouraging agricultural development through the medium of liberal appropriations for the conduct of many first class farmers' institutes, the work was correspondingly effective and the agricultural statistics of those states bespeak plainly what it means to the productive wealth and consequent increased prosperity to all classes of the states.

The increased prosperity of the farmer in any state means a proportionately increased prosperity of all the people in that state. A careful comparison of the wealth and prosperity of states which maintain and liberally support a thorough system of farmers' institutes with those which do not would readily convince the most skeptical that the institute had become a prominent and permanent factor in the prosperity and welfare of all states whose chief industry is that of agriculture.

If the agriculture of the New State of Oklahoma is to reach its highest possible attainments, this Board, or whatever officers be at the helm, must put forth their best endeavors to procure at the hands of the first state Legislative Assembly a very liberal appropriation for the support of a corps of institute workers who should be kept constantly in the field. There should be no delay in getting the full benefits to be had by a thorough institute campaign; it will cost no more to get before them now the information they as a class so much need, than it will to defer it some years.

The loss of soil fertility alone through wrong practices which would be occasioned by delay means the loss of one of our chief assets.

We can no longer depend upon the A. & M. College and Experiment Station to provide the funds necessary to defray the expenses of lecturers supplied by them in institute work. They are ready and willing to lend

assistance and encouragement but the expense for travel and maintenance can no longer be paid from the college or station funds.

Too much credit cannot be given to those farmers in various counties who have so ably helped in pushing the institute work to a successful issue in their respective counties. I wish to urge at this time, however, that a more concerted effort be made by all farmers interested in the success of the institute, to procure the attendance of the women of the farm; the farmers' wives and daughters. That method pursued in the states has solved the question of "how to interest the boys in the farm." There has been a general lack of interest demonstrated by the farmers' wives. In several of the counties not a single woman being present, while at others they were few in number compared with the men. One of the most successful institutes in the Territory has an audience about equally divided. The women not only being present but occupying a prominent place on the program and in the discussions.

I cannot pass this important subject without calling attention to the work being done by one of the delegates present, and offering an expression of appreciation which I am sure will be heartily concurred in by all the delegates. I have reference to the work of Mr. George L. Bishop, of Washita County, and his boys' class of Corn Breeders. Mr. Bishop has found time between the hours necessary to devote to the successful operation of his large farm and those necessary to devote to rest and recreation, to thoroughly interest a class of boys throughout Washita County in the selection of seed corn and the application of scientific methods of culture. The measure of success he has attained may be determined by a knowledge of the fact that the exhibits made by these boys, of their own production, successfully competed for prizes recently offered by the corn carnival at Oklahoma City. I hope the day is not far distant when many more men of "Mr. Bishop's willingness to sacrifice" class may come to the surface in Oklahoma.

Nursery Inspection

Under the supervision of this office, the Territorial Nursery Inspector, Prof. J. F. Nicholson, inspected ninety-five nurseries in Oklahoma at a net cost of $6.50 per nursery inspected. Applications for inspection are all supposed to be filed in our office by June 1st of each year. An itinerary is then made up and the inspector starts on his tour, keeping constantly at the work until it is completed. The total cost of such inspection which consists of actual outlay for travel and maintenance and $5.00 per day for time of Inspector is then charged pro rata to the nurseries inspected. This plan has given general satisfaction. Let it be understood that the $5.00 per day Inspector's fee in no way enriches the Inspector, but goes into the Experiment Station funds. During the year 1906 there were issued to foreign nurserymen one hundred thirty-five permits, being represented by the states of Kansas, Arkansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, New Mexico, Texas, Alabama, Indian Territory, Tennessee, Michigan, Wisconsin and Missouri.

There were three hundred forty-three duplicate or canvassers' permits issued for the agents of outside nurseries operating in Oklahoma. A fee of $5.00 is paid for each foreign nursery permit and $1.00 for each can

vasser's duplicate. The fund thus realized in the year 1906 amounts to $1,018.00.

At the last Annual Meeting I called attention to the known presence of the much dreaded San Jose Scale in five widely separated localities in the Territory. Careful and extended investigations by the Inspector at the same points this season revealed the deplorable fact that the area covered by this pernicious insect is at least twenty times what it was a year ago.

That it will continue to spread with greatly increased rapidity from year to year and ultimately result in the destruction of millions of dollars in fruit trees or necessitate the annual expenditure of large sums of money to hold it in check there is no doubt.

While the law regulates their control through the annual inspection of our nurseries, it does not provide any means to destroy them in permanent orchard plantations. The scale is now known to exist in great numbers in and around El Reno, Shawnee, Mulhall, Wellston and Chandler. In at least three instances it first appeared in the towns, but rapidly spread to the surrounding neighborhoods; it is now found in plentiful numbers three to four miles from points of origin.

Several of the states have enacted stringent laws looking to the eradication of this pest, which seem to be operating satisfactorily and which Oklahoma might emulate with profit.

All nurserymen whose growing stock is situated near where the scale are known to exist, are required to fumigate all stock, before shipment, with hydro-cyanic acid gas, under the observation and direction of the state entomologist. There should be some law which would make it more difficult to operate a nursery within three miles of where San Jose Scale are known to exist.

Reports

We are now distributing our Biennial Report for the years 1905-6. The issue consists of 2,500 cloth bound copies of 411 pages each. The entire issue has not yet been delivered by the printer, but will be completed within a few days. The cost of the report exclusive of the postage necessary for the distribution will be about one thousand dollars. We have run reprints in bulletin form of the statistical, cotton and broom corn portions of the report at a cost of about $50.00, which will enable us in a measure to satisfy many demands that would otherwise drain heavily on the supply of complete reports. Several minor reports were issued during the year but effort along that line had to cease on account of lack of funds. A brief quarterly report that would contain timely information for the farmers would assist materially in arousing an interest in the work of the Board and would unquestionably result in greatly increased attendance at farmers' institutes. We are willing and ready to do the work but must have the appropriation with which to cover the expense of printing and postage.

Statistics

There was a marked improvement in the character of the returns by assessors and county clerks in 1906 over that of the preceeding year which enabled us to publish statistics of a decidedly more reliable nature,

however several gross inaccuracies crept in, but, now that we have a basis we will be able to detect and run down whatever might appear to be erroneous returns.

We have improved the form of assessors' schedules and county clerk's blanks so that the work can now be conducted on a basis much less liable to error.

Cotton Boll Weevil

Under date of September 24th a letter was written to our Department by Prof. W. D. Hunter, who is the Field Agent of the Department of Agriculture in charge of Boll Weevil Investigations with headquarters at Dallas, Texas. In this letter he advises that recent investigations had revealed the presence of the Mexicon Cotton Boll Weevil, in considerable numbrs, in the Indian Territory. That a migration that began early in August, had taken them as far north as Atoka on the M., K. & T. railway, and Stanley on the Frisco. He predicted a further advance of perhaps twenty-five miles before the end of the season. In a subsequent let ter he reported the presence of the pests at Ardmore and Ryan in the Chickasaw Nation. The matter was at once taken up with the Board with the result that on October 8th a rigid quarantine proclamation was promulgated by Governor Frantz which aimed at the prevention of unnatural aid being given to the steady and certain advance of this pest. Just how much the quarantine has not been respected I am unable to say. As wide publicity as our means allow was given to the matter, but personal investigation and publicity will no doubt be required to make it effective. Under date of October 17, 1906, Prof. Hunter announced that he had taken the matter up with Secretary Wilson looking to the establishment of a quarantine in the Indian Territory.

Stock Food and Fertilizer Law

The Stock Food and Fertilizer Law which became effective January 1st, 1906, has been pretty generally respected, and during the year thirtyfour food and fertilizer manufacturers filed certificates in our office and deposited the required fee of $20.00 per brand offered for sale in the Territory as the law required. The fund realized amounts to $940.00. Let me say for the edification of those who do not fully understand the requirements along this line, that our law requires all brands of package stock feeds, cotton seed meal, linseed meal, mixed feeds, etc., offered for sale in Oklahoma to bear a printed copy of a certificate the original of which must be filed in the office of the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, giving the guaranteed percentages of crude protein and crude fat. The food value of these different preparations depends largely on the quantity of these elements they contain.

Financial Statement

The number of delegates in attendance at the annual meeting in January, 1906, was twenty-one. The expense incident to such attendance which was paid out of the general funds of the Territory amounted to $233.30. During the year 1906 the Board was in session seventeen days. The mileage and per diem cost of such meetings amounted to the sum of $436.54, which was also paid from the general fund.