The old world and its ways

by William Jennings Bryan

A STREET IN BUDAPEST.

The present minister of agriculture, Dr. Ignatius Daramyi, has been at the head of this department for ten years, and being an enthusiast on the subject, he has introduced many new features and brought his department into close contact with the people. During his administration the annual appropriations for agriculture have increased from about eight million dollars to about thirteen millions, and the income from his department has risen from six million dollars to nine millions, leaving the net cost to the state at present some four million dollars per year.

Hungary believes in furnishing technical training to those who intend to farm; she had twenty-two industrial schools, with about six hundred pupils, and these schools are so distributed as to make them convenient for the small farmers. She has four secondary schools of agriculture, with a total attendance of over five hundred, and to complete her system she has an agricultural academy with a student body of one hundred and fifty. In order to accommodate adults who have not had the advantage of these schools, she has short winter terms and traveling instructors. By systematic effort the agricultural department is not only increasing the efficiency of the Hungarian as a tiller of the soil, but it is increasing his general intelligence and raising the standard of citizenship.

The experiment station is also a prominent feature of the work of the department of agriculture. All new agricultural implements are tested and reports are furnished upon their merits; there are several seed-testing stations where farmers can secure at cost price, not only selected seeds, but seed shown by experiment to be suited to the climate and soil of their locality. Then there are a number of model farms located at convenient points, which are intended to be object lessons to the neighborhoods in which they are situated. At these model farms and at other centers breeding establishments are conducted where horses, cattle, hogs and sheep of the best breeds are kept and loaned to the farmers about. These breeding farms have resulted in a marked improvement in the quality and value of the stock.

Nor does the agricultural department confine its attention to stock raising and ordinary farming; it is equally interested in horticulture, vine dressing, forestry, and even bee culture. Government nurseries furnish the hardiest varieties of young trees and vines and train those who desire to give special attention to these branches of industry. Instruction in the pruning of trees and the training of vines has an artistic as well as a utilitarian side, and taste is developed in the ornamentation of the arbors and gardens. Here, as elsewhere in Europe, much attention is given to forestry, and under the direction of the department of agriculture the work of preserving the old forests and of planting new groves is being intelligently and systematically done.

In addition to the work above outlined, the agricultural department has taken in hand the matter of furnishing general information to the farmers and farm laborers. It encourages the formation of workingmen's clubs, co-operative societies and parochial relief funds. It has established more than one thousand free libraries and publishes a weekly paper with a circulation of about sixty thousand. More than half of the copies are published in the Hungarian language, the rest being divided between five other languages, the Slavic coming next to the Hungarian and the German following, although less than ten per cent are printed in the latter language. To strengthen the ties between employers and employés, harvest feasts have been inaugurated and the attendance at these feasts is yearly increasing.

I have gone into detail somewhat in describing the scope of the work undertaken by the agricultural department of Hungary because I think that we might, with advantage, adopt some of its features. Our national appropriation for agricultural purposes bears a small proportion, not only to the amount of taxes paid by the farmer, but to the appropriations made for other departments.

Budapest, the capital of Hungary, is one of the most attractive cities in Europe. In 1896 I received a cablegram of congratulation from a farmers' congress which was at that time in session in that city. I remembered this because it was the only cablegram received from any body of Europeans during the campaign.