164 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



final results were that seventy-eight out of the total number of contestants 

 finished up. Later on, in the fall, we had a corn show at Waterloo, and 

 each one of the contestants was required to exhibit thirty ears of corn. 

 We made arrangements with the management of the cattle show at Water- 

 loo to provide each one of the contestants with a free ticket for the 

 entire week at their show. The result was that we had in that show 

 about 330 contestants, each of whom had twenty-five or thirty ears of 

 samples they had saved up, filling a space twenty-five or thirty feet long, 

 by twelve wide, with corn on each side of the porch and hung overhead 

 on seed corn hangers. Now, we eliminated a good many of the con- 

 testants by the scoring, and after they were eliminated by these scores 

 we had seventy-eight left. What was the result? We had 572 contestants, 

 in round numbers, representing about one-fourth of the farmers of Black 

 Hawk county. We had about 100,000 acres of corn in Black Hawk county; 

 that represented one acre from each one of these farmers, making a total 

 of something like 25,000 acres of corn that was represented at the corn 

 show. I say represented because the acre he selected was the best acre 

 he could get on the farm, and the 330 samples would represent some- 

 thing like 14,000 acres of corn. And in the final elimination of the con- 

 testants that represented something like 3,500 acres of corn in Black 

 Hawk county on which we got the exact weight in the crib and the 

 amount of shelled corn, and we absolutely know the shelling per cent. 

 We found out more than that. In the organization of the Crop Improve- 

 ment Association of Black Hawk county we started out to find a standard 

 variety of corn, and thought we had. When we got through, finally, we 

 found that the variety of corn we selected, and had been recommending, 

 yielded six bushels more per acre, on the average, than the next competing 

 variety; and that represented a good deal. To increase the yield in 

 Black Hawk county, only one bushel per acre would mean 100,000 

 bushels; it would mean, in round numbers, $50,000 net increase in the 

 corn crop in that county alone. Now, I am sure the corn show and the 

 tests we have made in Black Hawk county would increase the yield. In 

 fact, testing out every ear of the seed corn, not to say anything about the 

 better variety of corn acquired, not to say anything about crop rotation, 

 in any county in the state of Iowa, will more than increase the corn 

 production of one bushel per acre. 



Now, I have included many things along the line of experimental 

 work, but there are many things I have not mentioned. For instance, 

 the growing of alfalfa, the distribution of clover seed, and some of the 

 other experiments that have been conducted, but I thought perhaps it 

 would be better to give you a brief idea of what we attempted to do, 

 rather than to give you my own idea of the crop association work. I do 

 not know how generally the people of Iowa look with favor upon this 

 proposition, and I do not know' how many of you people here this after- 

 noon are in favor of this proposition, but, I want to say to you, it is one 

 of the greatest agricultural movements that has occurred since our Civil 

 war, and it goes hand in hand with the extension department, the experi- 

 ment station and the Agricultural College, and, whether the people of 

 the state of Iowa, or you people here, are in favor of it or not, the crop 



