PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 531 



in rare cases, be abandoned as some of the farms in New England and the 

 south. Some of those little valleys in New England and in the south 

 were wonderfully prosperous and fertile generations ago, but they have 

 been wholly abandoned and grown up to scrub pine and other scrub trees 

 as you know. So I can see that in generations to come such a thing might 

 occur on our broad acres. At least the possibility of a profitable produc- 

 tion might cease. 



Every one of us knows of farms naturally as fertile as the Almighty 

 ever created, that have been corned year after year and have been so 

 worn out that it is almost impossible to cultivate them so well that even 

 thirty or forty bushels of corn can be produced. On the other hand, it is 

 possible to conserve the soil in a way that will produce more and more. 

 After a period when the cost of production has not been returned to the 

 Iowa farmer, it may seem out of place to talk too much about the con- 

 servation of soil fertility in order that we may produce more, but you 

 know well that the farm that has come nearest to paying the cost of 

 production is the farm that has yielded well per acre. 



I remember well, and you do, too, perhaps, that P. G. Holden, during 

 his supremacy, told us in every hamlet and corner in every address hat 

 he made, that two years of corn, one year of small grain and one year 

 of clover, with the manure returned to the soil, would produce more corn 

 in a period of years than corn every year would; and he never uttered 

 during that campaign for seed corn and better corn conditions a truer 

 statement than that. He also went on to say, as you know, that you 

 would get your clover and your small grain extra, and furthermore from 

 year to year you would see your yield increase. 



I may digress even a little further from the subject than I have. I 

 see vastly more in this conservation of fertility than mere profit in dol- 

 lars, and it is well worth while from a financial standpoint alone to lay 

 any stress that I may upon the conservation of fertile Iowa land. I be- 

 lieve the Creator made this great middle-west for the home of a perma- 

 nent agriculture. There are those who would have us become a great 

 industrial nation at the sacrifice of most everything else and buy our 

 foodstuffs where we can buy the cheapest. I think that idea has lost its 

 popularity some in the eastern states, but during our peak prices there 

 was a tremendous influence along that line to make America a great in- 

 dustrial country and buy our foodstuffs where we could buy them the 

 cheapest, and anywhere and anyway that we could. But, as I say, I be- 

 lieve that the Creator intended that this should be a great home for per- 

 manent agriculture in this great Mississippi valley. A rural citizenship 

 has made America distinctly different from Europe. The story of the 

 farm boy from the country to the greatest places of responsibility and 

 influence in our great cities has ever been the fascination. I believe this 

 is what we should maintain. 



We are coming rapidly to a place where these farms either will be 

 tilled by an ignorant peasant class, as they are in Europe, or we will 

 continue under careful leadership and direction and forethought to de- 

 velop this American citizenship on the farms in the United States that 

 we have so long taken pride in. We are nearing the parting of the ways 

 — the peasant, or rural citizenship which has been the pride and backbone 



