416 TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART V 



suppose the average man working on our great railroad systems carries 

 not less than 100 tons while that coolie is carrying one ton. We are not 

 afraid of that kind of ignorant competition. We have the inventors and 

 scientists to show how we can meet it and beat it. 



When we produce a harvester, a threshing machine, a tractor, a baby 

 beef, we are reducing the cost of production and we are getting a stronger 

 grip on the foreign market. AVhen we allow hog cholera to take part of 

 our livestock; when we allow wheat rust to take away 100 million dollars 

 worth of wheat, we are then increasing our cost of production and losing 

 our hold on the foreign market. I knew a farmer who produced hogs 

 this past year at a cost of 44c a pound. That is the actual figure. It 

 was so because of hog cholera. And I know another farmer who got his 

 cost down somewhere in the vicinity of 4c a pound. He had knowledge 

 and was using it. We should aim to retain a strong grasp upon the for- 

 eign market. It will not be easy. We will have to encourage our in- 

 ventors and our scientists so that we can make one man in this country 

 as efficient as two or three or ten against whom we must compete. 



A few words about the relations between an agricultural college and 

 this present situation. I want to say that the relations are most Intimate. 

 Our duty at the agricultural college is to help find new and better methods 

 of improving quality, cheapening production and marketing, and improv- 

 ing country life, with the idea of conserving our greatest of all natural 

 resources — soil fertility. The work of our agricultural college is con- 

 ducted under three federal laws with several amendments. We began 

 the teaching work about fifty years ago, and I will not dwell upon it. 

 At first it was not popular. Today at Ames there are 1,500 young men 

 studying agriculture, and almost all of them are planning on going onto 

 Iowa farms. Don't make the mistake of thinking that in these days a 

 college education in agriculture is taking young people away from the 

 farms — it is helping to increase their interest in the farm, it is giving 

 them fundamental knowledge with which to meet their problems when 

 they return, and we are not overlooking the fact that they will be citizens 

 as well as farmers. 



In the experiment station some very interesting work is being done 

 for farmers. Our men are loaded up with problems sent in to them day 

 after day by Iowa farmers. 



And the third line of work is the extension work, an old system which 

 was given great impetus about eight years ago when the federal law was 

 passed which made possible the installation of a county agent in every 

 county in the state of Iowa. Do you know what those men did last year? 

 They held educational meetings all over the state which were attended 

 by more than a million and a half of persons. Do not say that the farm- 

 ers don't want information. The time was, way back years ago, when 

 some resented instruction, but now they know that they, like manufac- 

 turers, doctors and lawyers, have to get information that is reliable and 

 up to date in order to keep ahead. 



Just one instance to show the money value of the extension work. 

 During the past year there have been not less than 6,000 demonstrations 

 in poultry culling in this state. If each one of the 27 million hens in 

 Iowa will increase her annual production just one egg by reason of the 



