160 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



series of meetings were held with the farm bureaus of the state and six 

 or eight men in each county were started out on individual cost account- 

 ing studies. Those records have been going along now, some of them, 

 three years, two years, and a good many more started last year, and I 

 want to say to you that a very short time ago I received a letter from 

 the federal trade commission asking for a list of the officers of our or- 

 ganization, and I believe, gentlemen, I can read between the lines, for 

 when that letter came to me it indicated immediately that inasmuch as 

 the federal trade commission has been investigating during the past two 

 or three years and longer the high cost of living, they had been investi- 

 gating the live-stock packers, they had been investigating the wholesale 

 grocers, they had been investigating everybody, I believe that within a 

 very short time the farmers of this and every other state are going to 

 be called upon to give expert testimony as to the cost of producing their 

 individual farm products. Do you know that the agitation carried on 

 during the past year, or three or four months especially, to push down 

 the high cost of living, and that "buck" has been passed back and forth 

 until it has landed on the producer, and he is going to have to tell the 

 truth some of these days as to what it costs to produce, or else he is 

 going to have to bear the burden. What is going to be the result? We 

 have got probably 300 men in the state of Iowa who have got some figures 

 as to the cost of production. At that time those men will be called, their 

 books will be brought in, and they will have some records. Perhaps we 

 can get a little ways with it, but that is not' complete; we have got to 

 go further than that, we have got to study the cost of production on the 

 individual farm before we can get anywhere on this farm bureau prob- 

 lem. The farm bureau has on the press 40,000 of these account records 

 that will be distributed by the extension division. Over 29,000 of those 

 .books are spoken for and will be used by the farmers in this state in 

 getting down to a systematic study of the cost of production on a farm, 

 and within a short time, within a period of three years, we will know 

 more about our business than we know at the present time, and when 

 that thing is known, then some substantial system can be worked out 

 that will help our marketing problems and credit, especially with respect 

 to our national organization that has been brought into existence at Chi- 

 cago recently. 



Now, then, as to the marketing work that has been done in the state. 

 You men connected with fair work know of the success of the county 

 live-stock breeders' association. Why were they organized? Principally 

 for the purpose of bringing together into a county organization all the 

 live-stock breeders for the development of their particular interests. In- 

 cidentally that organization serves a two-fold purpose: It is a marketing 

 organization because the first thing they do is get out a co-operative 

 catalog in which they advertise together and it is distributed broadcast 

 over the county and it is distributed throughout the state and the country, 

 and presently you have buyers coming in and picking up that stock by 

 the carload, and pretty soon they will be picking it up by the trainload. 

 It is to the advantage of the grain men in the marketing of their product 

 that we have the co-operative elevator movement in the state. They have 

 formed a national organization and are given recognition on the grain 



