(12) The population of the hive should not decrease appreciably after the bees are removed from the cellar. Such a condition, known as spring dwindling, is an indication of poor wintering. For three weeks after the hives are set out no new bees will be emerging, but the loss of bees during this time should be so small as not to be noticeable.
[Extracts from President Wilson's message to the Farmers' Conference at Urbana, Ill., January 31, 1918.]
The forces that fight for freedom, the freedom of men all over the world as well as our own, depend upon us in an extraordinary and unexpected degree for sustenance, for the supply of the materials by which men are to live and to fight, and it will be our glory when the war is over that we have supplied those materials and supplied them abundantly, and it will be all the more glory because in supplying them we have made our supreme effort and sacrifice.
In the field of agriculture we have agencies and instrumentalities, fortunately, such as no other government in the world can show. The Department of Agriculture is undoubtedly the greatest practical and scientific agricultural organization in the world. Its total annual budget of $46,000,000 has been increased during the last four years more than 72 per cent. It has a staff of 18,000, including a large number, of highly trained experts, and alongside of it stands the unique land grant colleges, which are without example elsewhere, and the 69 State and Federal experiment stations. These colleges and experiment stations have a total endowment of plant and equipment of $172,000,000 and an income of more than $35,000,000 with 10,271 teachers, a resident student body of 125,000, and a vast additional number receiving instructions at their homes. County agents, joint officers of the Department of Agriculture and of the colleges, are everywhere cooperating with the farmers and assisting them. The number of extension workers under the Smith-Lever Act and under the recent emergency legislation has grown to 5,500 men and women working regularly in the various communities and taking to the farmer the latest scientific and practical information. Alongside these great public agencies stand the very effective voluntary organizations among the farmers themselves which are more and more learning the best methods of cooperation and the best methods of putting to practical use the assistance derived from governmental sources. The banking legislation of the last two or three years has given the farmers access to the great lendable capital of the country, and it has become the duty both of the men in charge of the Federal Reserve Banking System and of the Farm Loan Banking System to see to it that the farmers obtain the credit, both short term and long term, to which they are entitled not only, but which it is imperatively necessary should be extended to them if the present tasks of the country are to be adequately performed. Both by direct purchase of nitrates and by the establishment of plants to produce nitrates, the Government is doing its utmost to assist in the problem of fertilization. The Department of Agriculture and other agencies are actively assisting the farmers to locate, safeguard, and secure at cost an adequate supply of sound seed.