110 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



prices have been way up. My thought goes back to the time when I was 

 a boy, back in the 50s. We sold hand-shelled corn, piled up so high in the 

 basket that it ran over, and it was put through a fanning mill so that it 

 would bring the very highest price, and it sold for 12 1/^ cents a bushel, 

 and, at that, we took it in trade. Oats 10 cents a bushel. As a boy I car- 

 ried things from home to market — a basket of eggs on one arm and butter 

 on the other — the best butter I ever tasted. We had only one cow, and 

 there wasn't a great deal of butter made from one cow on prairie grass. 

 We didn't use a great deal of butter ourselves; we kept it for sale, and 

 that butter was prepared by mother — mother cared for the cream and I 

 drove the churn, and I make the statement today that I have never tasted 

 such butter since — I suppose because my mother made it and because my 

 appetite was better in those days than it is now. And I sold that butter 

 at 5 cents a pound, and eggs at 3 cents a dozen. And rich we were at it. 

 And I sold all that stuff for 72 cents at the market, but 3 cents was worth 

 as much then as 72 cents is today. How we grew potatoes. The brush soil 

 is the very finest kind of potato ground. I drove the breaking plow, and 

 then would follow the furrow and drop in the potatoes. In the fall all you 

 had to do was to turn the furrow over and there lay the potatoes. We 

 picked them up by hand, took them to market or from house to house, and 

 how much did we get for them? Fifteen cents a bushel, or 5 cents for 

 a pail full — we counted three pails to the bushel. The good housewife 

 would bring her pail to the side of the wagon and I would shovel them in 

 with my hands, and we would get 5 cents a pail for them. 



Now what do we have to complain of? What do we have to complain of 

 in comparison to those times? A few of you young fellows don't know 

 what it is to be hard up. (Applause.) You never went through those ex- 

 periences, and I hope you never will. But there is nothing discouraging 

 to agriculture in Iowa today; not a thing to discourage us. Of course we 

 have low prices in comparison to what we had, but there was a time for 

 years, and years before the world war began, that we considered 50 cents 

 a pretty good price for corn, and we considered 30 and 40 cents a pretty 

 good price for oats; and wheat, we have practically ceased to be a wheat- 

 growing state, we cannot compete with Canada and Minnesota and the 

 Dakotas in the raising of wheat; but there is no necessity for abandoning 

 the raising of corn and the feeding of corn to our hogs. And while prices 

 are declining now, we are just laying up for future good times. I re- 

 member a German neighbor of mine back in the 90s speaking of prices, 

 people weren't buying and there was practically nothing moving at all, and 

 I was complaining with regard to conditions, and he says, "John, that's 

 all right; that's all right; the country is getting rich now. Everybody 

 is economizing, everybody is saving; the last few years everybody was 

 spending and everybody was getting poor, but now we are economizing 

 and saving, so that we will have good times again." That is what we are 

 having now, and it will be but a short time until we have good times again 

 and plenty of money. Instead of extensive farming, I want to see inten- 

 sive farming in Iowa. (Applause.) I don't want to see one farm spread 

 over so much territory; I want to see fewer acres in crop and more acres 

 in grass. The Almighty has favored us in a remarkable degree in giving 



