dairy products, corn, wheat, oats, barley, soybeans, hay—an almost
endless variety of agricultural products....

All of us are aware of the revolution that has taken place in farming
and farming methods during the past several years. Only a few
years ago, it was possible for a person with sufficient determination
but without much capital, much equipment and much scientific
training to wrest from the soil a good living for himself and his
family. That, as we know, is not true today.

Scientific and technological advancements of the past few years
have made agriculture increasingly more competitive, so that it is
essential that every farmer increase his yield per acre to meet this
fierce competition. A farmer nowadays is not only a cultivator of
the soil. He must be a businessman. He must have the scientific and
technological know-how to grow crops and produce livestock. Other-
wise, he will not survive in a competitive world.

In agriculture, as in industry and commerce, it is a function of
government in this highly complex society which we have built to
create a social and economic climate that will permit people to prosper
in their undertakings. This is true of all levels of government-
federal, state and local.

Understandably, farmers, being individualists, have resented some
of government's activities as meddling. All of us often have the same
feeling. But most assuredly, the farmers of today would not advocate
the elimination of programs of agricultural assistance and advice
that are offered by federal, state and local governments.

In you State government, we have tried to help the farmer—not
to interfere with his farming. Our role, as I have suggested, is to
create the kind of circumstances under which he can be most success-
ful in his endeavors. We are doing this in research, in the application
of the findings of research through our Extension Service and in the
various service and control programs in behalf of agriculture.

Most of you know that within recent weeks I appointed a new State
agency—the Agricultural Advisory Board authorized by the General
Assembly at its session this year. By law, this 11-member Board must
be comprised of eight persons who are bona fide farmers—that is to
say farmers who actually till the soil; two members representing
businesses or services directly related to agriculture, and the eleventh
member who is an ex officio representative of the State Board of
Agriculture. The statute under which the Board was created states
that it was the intent of the General Assembly to "provide for Mary-
66