TWENTIETH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART II 159 



Now, then, what are we going to do with the other 20 per cent of- those 

 men who have not been reached? On the 5th day of January a second 

 organization drive will be made. Instead of an individual farm house- 

 to-house canvass, this next one will be in the form, or on the plan, of a 

 township meeting. We are taking about 30 men who have been out on 

 the first drive and bringing them together and giving them the vision of 

 those men who can make good talks, and bringing them together for two 

 or three days to exchange their ideas, and they are going back to these 

 various counties in the state for a second drive and are going to invite in 

 every member of the farm bureau that signed up, invite him to bring his 

 friends who were missed in the first drive and hold a township meeting 

 in every township in the state of Iowa. The second drive will end on 

 March 1st. In that drive we expect to bring in another 40,000 or 50,000 

 members. And at the same time that that drive is completed, every man 

 who has attended those meetings will know how to make use of the farm 

 bureau, what it stands for, what the state organization stands for, and 

 what the national organization stands for. In other words, we will have 

 150,000 or 160,000 men in this state who are thinking in the same direc- 

 tion along the line of farm bureau work. So much for organization. 



Taking up some of our other points: The work of marketing and 

 transportation: That is what interests everyone, it interests every pro- 

 ducer because he said time and time again that the farm bureau work 

 has been along the line of stimulating food production and we haven't 

 been doing anything along the line of marketing or transportation, and 

 I want to assure you, friends, that all during these seven years there has 

 been constantly going on a system of marketing and building up that 

 organization, whether we have been conscious of it or not, it has been 

 constantly developing, slowly developing, until at the present time they 

 are ready to come out with some definite programs which have been 

 worth a great deal to every county and every community in which they 

 existed. The problem today that is confronting the farmer is not so 

 much the buying end as it is the selling, and when it comes to selling 

 end he lacks information at the present time on the cost of production. 

 Now, how is that to be gained? We find that true in every community. 

 When you say to a man, "How much does it cost you to produce this 

 article?" he is not able to tell you. Three years ago I attended a con- 

 vention of swine producers of the Mississippi valley states. At that time 

 there was under discussion the cost of production, and a man got up and 

 gave testimony that it took all the way from 8 to 18 bushels of corn to 

 produce 100 pounds of pork, and they were all guessing at it. The only 

 accurate way is that presented by Prof. Evaard, of the Iowa Experiment 

 Station. They were not willing to take the testimony of one man, but 

 they wanted the actual tests out in the field, but they. weren't able to 

 give it to them, so they finally called a committee of 12 or 15 men to- 

 gether and tried to come to some agreement, and I'll leave it to you if 

 you were sitting on a jury and had the same kind of evidence presented 

 to you, you would not have done any different than they did at that time. 

 In other words, after getting back from that meeting, I talked it over with 

 our executive board and we decided it was necessary to carry on some 

 very careful cost account records, and through the college a special 



