Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting: Washington, D. C. October 7 and 8, 1920 — John Shaqi
Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting: Washington, D. C. October 7 and 8, 1920
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Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting: Washington, D. C. October 7 and 8, 1920
Northern Nut Growers Association -- Periodicals; Nut trees -- Periodicals; Nuts -- Periodicals
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I want to take just one or two minutes in introducing
Mr. Reed, the next speaker on the program. The Department of
Agriculture, as we all know, is an aggregation of many of the very
brightest men in this country. Those of us who are here in Washington
know that at times it is sadly in need of organization. It is perfectly
apparent to anybody who has judgment enough to make observations that
there is a great deal of very valuable material down there going to
waste for the lack of organization. Perhaps it will always be so. I do
not know. Institutions are not perfect because the individuals
constituting these institutions are not perfect. The Department of
Agriculture is, taken as a whole, a most wonderful institution. I do
wish, however, that the Department officials would not always wait until
they think they know exactly all the facts about a thing before they
publish it. I sometimes wish they had enough nerve to say: "Now, this is
what we found out today. We may change our minds tomorrow and if we do
we will tell you so," the same as any other honest citizen. Why in the
world they collect all the data they do, file it away day after day,
month after month and year after year, and publish it after it is of no
use to anyone on this earth, I never could figure out! I know it is a
difficult problem because if the Department of Agriculture should say
today that Winesap apples grow beautifully on Maryland hills some fellow
would promptly capitalize that and go to selling the Maryland hills, the
water underneath, the air above them and everything around them for the
modest sum of ten times what it was worth. So that is the other side of
it. It makes it necessary for the Department of Agriculture, of course,
to be cautious. I know, however, that you all think as I do because you
have said so to me but you do not all have the nerve to get up here and
say as I do that the Department of Agriculture ought to give us more of
these data; that they ought to give it to us for what it is worth today
and in this lifetime, leaving it to us to have a little common sense to
know that what they say must be taken as they say it. However, I did not
get up here to say all of those things. My purpose is to introduce the
speaker.
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