REMARKS, MARYLAND FARM BUREAU BANQUET

BALTIMORE
January 19, 1962

I am deeply grateful for this opportunity to attend another annual
banquet of the Maryland Farm Bureau and to extend to you who are
here this evening the official greeting of the State of Maryland.

From the earliest colonial days to the present, agriculture has been
a keystone in the economy of Maryland, and the cultivation of the
soil a basic part of Maryland life....

The Maryland Farm Bureau and its affiliated organizations have
played an outstanding role in the development and improvement of
farming in our State. It has been my pleasure to have worked very
closely with the officers and members of the Bureau to develop to
the highest potential the agricultural resources of the State.

Your State government considers it to be its function in the enter-
prise to give you the kind of assistance that you as individuals cannot
provide for yourselves and in general to create the kind of social and
economic climate in which you can prosper in your pursuits. 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 that are being carried on for the benefit of agri-
culture.

Some of you will recall that a year ago I mentioned that I had
appointed a committee to make a study of the agricultural set-up
in our State. Before it, among other things, was the question of the
creation of a State Department of Agriculture. As you know, the
committee advised against the creation of such a department and
recommended instead that an advisory board be appointed to advise
the State Board of Agriculture on agricultural matters. As most of
you know, this Board has been appointed and is functioning....

Steps have been taken, also, to improve the condition of migratory
labor, to conserve and develop our water resources, to attack the
problem of beach and shore erosion, to expand our agriculture edu-
cation program and to improve the programs of research, marketing
studies and reports carried on by the University of Maryland. In
other words, your State government is active and vigilant in promoting
the interests and the welfare of the Maryland farmer, believing that
a flourishing agricultural community is the strongest bulwark of a
free society....

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