The Stewardship of the Soil / Baccalaureate Address by John Henry Worst, President, North Dakota Agricultural College

STEWARDSHIP OF THE SOIL WORST
The STEWARDSHIP OF THE SOIL
Address by JOHN HENRY WORST
President of NORTH DAKOTA AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
The Stewardship of the Soil
BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS BY JOHN HENRY WORST PRESIDENT NORTH DAKOTA AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
Delivered at the Twenty First Annual Commencement of the North Dakota Agricultural College Fargo, North Dakota, June Sixth, Nineteen Hundred Fifteen
Our ambitious young commonwealth, in conjunction with other states comprising the great Northwest, occupies a commanding position in the industrial and economic affairs of this nation.
Mines of gold and silver or forests primeval North Dakota does not have; but from the millions of fertile acres comprising our vast agricultural empire, we may reap a golden harvest every year that will exceed in wealth the output of all the golden placers in the western mountains.
The harvest of minerals, however, can be gathered but once. Time will not restore the precious nuggets.
The forests once harvested can, at great expense, be renewed in the course of a century; but our harvest of domestic plants and animals recurs with every passing season to recompense the farmer for his toil and to enrich the farmer's friends.
What a precious theme is harvest! The hopes, the well-being, the life of the world is fast bound up in the magic of this single word.