282 IOWA DEi'ARTMEXT OF AGRICULTURE 



Not long since I received a letter from h:m saying that on account of 

 ill health it would be out of the question for him to be with us at this 

 time and requested me to be here and preside and prepare and deliver 

 what he termed the "address of welcome." I fully intended to be here, 

 but had expected it v. culd be simply as a spectator and while I felt I might . 

 possibly preside, I hardly felt equal to the occasion of saying or writing 

 anything that v>ould do justice to the occasion. 



There are a few thoughts, however, in connection with the Iowa swine 

 Breeders Association that it seems to me are worthy of our serious con- 

 sideraticn. I doubt if many or in fact any of us fully reiHze the im- 

 portant part this old association has played primarily in placing the 

 swine industry where we find it today, and incidentally in giving the 

 State of Iowa the proud rating she now enjoys, and I am firm in the belief 

 that while we have other swine associations and good ones this is really 

 the "master wheel" and has been a potent factor in the development of 

 our state intellectually, socially and morally. 



We have our breed organizations ^^hich are created solely to further 

 the interests of a particular breed this is proper and right, v,e also have 

 our great state fair of which every lowan should feel justly proud, more 

 especially the swine men, for as a swine exhibit its counterpart does not 

 exist on the face of the earth, here we find this greatest array of swine 

 and swine men each breed allotted so much space and penned off by them- 

 selves and when the fair is over the breeders of a certain breed have seen 

 scarcely nothing of the exhibitors of the other breeds and still less of his 

 hogs, this could not very well be otherwise as each has to work for and 

 look out for his own interest. 



But how is it when we come to the Iowa Swine Breeders meeting, or aji 

 it is called for short, the June meeting, here all are breeders but not 

 "breeders of breeds" all feel at home and that we are really brothers 

 thus bringing forcibly to mind the sublime beauty of that passage of 

 scripture which reads: "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for 

 brethren to dwell together in unity," we all come to learn and enjoy 

 a mutual exchange of ideas, in years gone by it not infrequently happened 

 that the breed prejudice would crop out either in a paper or the discus- 

 sion by the claim of superiority of some particular breed, but I am pleased 

 to say this is practically cut out, and I hope eliminated for all time, 

 while we have been taught that certain nitrogenous foods would produce 

 bone-muscle and vigor in a Poland China we have also learned it would 

 do exactly the same in any other of the improved bree-ds and on the other 

 hand those foods that would cause deterioration in these points in one 

 ^^ould make no exception of the others, and we have thus learned that 

 what is beneficial to one is so to all, this was quite forcibly set forth by 

 our agricultural college at Ames several years ago at the conclusion of a 

 breed experiment who put it thus: "The results are such that while we 

 may all rejoice none can exult." 



Federal inspections at the abattoirs of the country show that approxi- 

 mately 2 per cent of the hogs slaughtered in them are affected with tuber- 

 culosis, and of this number not far from 10 per cent were so badly dis- 

 eased that they no longer possessed any value save their worth for grease 

 and fertilizer. 



