for the Department of Agriculture, it is only one six-hundredth of the value of the agricultural products of the country, and there is every reason to suppose that it is a good investment. The figures of our agricultural wealth as given in the last report of the Secretary of Agriculture are so vast as to be difficult to grasp. Thus the corn crop alone is valued at $1,210,000,000. Hay, cotton, wheat, butter and milk and poultry and eggs each produced products worth over $500,000,000. Farm products of the value of $827,000,000 were exported. Thanks to such exports the balance of trade in favor of this country in the course of the past sixteen years amounts to over $5,000,000,000. The farms of the United States are said to have increased in value to the amount of $0,131,000,000 in the course of the past five years.
The Secretary of Agriculture awards mainly to the department credit for the great advances in the prosperity of the, farmer in recent years. In concluding his report he says: "The gratifying evidences of well-being in our farming community, the extraordinary progress l made in the past few years, and the rapidly enlarging recognition of the true position of the farming industry in the economic life of this country are mainly the result of this continued and combined effort on the part of these agencies to add to the sum of the farmer's knowledge, and must be regarded as the triumph of intelligence in the application of scientific knowledge to the tillage of the soil. This is so obviously true that it would seem superfluous to urge the generous maintenance of the department in its grand work. Great as has been the work undertaken and accomplished, gratifying as have been the results, as shown in the first few pages of this report, be it remembered that we are still at the threshold of agricultural development, and that the educational work which has led to such grand results has only been extended as yet to a portion of our agricultural population. There if not an intelligent, patriotic citizen in the Union who will not say with his whole heart, 'Let the good work go on.'"
THE WILL OF ALFRED BEIT.
Mr. Alfred Beit, who accumulated a vast fortune in South Africa and died on July 10, has by his will given large sums for public purposes. The most notable bequest is $0,000,000 to his partners to constitute a fund, the income of which is to be devoted to the construction, equipment or furtherance of any such methods of communication or transportation in Rhodesia, Portuguese Southeast Africa or the German possessions, and any parts of Africa that may be traversed by the Cape-to-Cairo Railway. The trustees are to have absolute discretion, and if two thirds decide that the fund is no longer required for furthering the work of communication or transportation, they can apply the proceeds to educational, charitable or other public purposes in Rhodesia.
One million dollars is left to the University of Johannesburg to build and equip buildings on the land previously given by Mr. Beit; one million dollars for educational or charitable purposes in Rhodesia and other territories within the field of the British South Africa Company; $125,000 to the Rhodes University, Grahamstown, Cape Colony; $100,000 for educational or charitable purposes in the Transvaal, and $75,000 for similar purposes in Kimberley and in Cape Colony. To the College of Technology, London University, the sum of $250,000 and 1,000 shares in the DeBeers Company are bequeathed, and to the research fund of London University $125,000. Two hundred thousand dollars is to be distributed equally in London and Hamburg for educational or charitable purposes. To King's Hospital and Guy's Hospital, London, the sum of $100,000 each is given. Mr. Beit's property
