It is, perhaps, unnecessary to state that the salaries mentioned in this chapter are obtained only by young men who possess certain qualifications. To secure them, they must be men of ability, integrity, virtue and industry. No man who is not willing to make the preparation necessary to master his subject can expect to succeed. He must, also, be a man of absolute honesty, and he must lead a clean life. It was Bismarck who said, of German university students, "One-third die out; one-third rot out; the other third rule Germany." Every man who will may choose whether he will belong to Bismarck's second or third class. The question for the young man of 20 is not merely as to the morrow, but what is likely to be the trend of events during the next 35 to 50 years. "In 1800 the United States nowhere crossed the Mississippi and nowhere touched the Gulf of Mexico." In 1850 the country west of the Mississippi River was agriculturally largely an undiscovered region. Since 1870 we have much more than doubled our population and our agriculture. Since that time we have subdued more of the open country to the uses of man than we had been able to do in 250 years of our previous history. During the past 300 years we have prided ourselves upon being an agricultural people. We have been an agricultural people, but our problems have not been chiefly those of the agriculturist, but those of the engineer. Our problem, in the past, has not been to make two blades of grass to grow where but one grew before. Our problem has been to harvest and transport two bushels of wheat or two bales of cotton with the labor previously required to harvest one. Our crops have been so abundant that the agricultural problems connected with the growing of them has been secondary to the engineering problems of their harvesting and transportation. The self-binder and the steam locomotive have been our achievements. If the writer mistakes not, the future problem will not be so much the harvesting and transporting, as the growth of the crops. In the future, young men will be needed who have studied the science of living things in order that they may make, literally, two blades of grass to grow where but one grew. To men who will be able to do so, will come success and honor. CHAPTER V WHERE TO LOCATE Unless the young farmer expects to return to the ancestral home, the first question he must settle is where he is going to locate. Indeed, one of the most common questions asked is, What do you think of this state or that state or this region or that as a place to farm? There are few questions harder to answer. This is due, among other reasons, to the fact that every place has its advantages and disadvantages. The sum of the advantages may be greater in one place than in another, but if these advantages are known they must generally be paid for.