FIFTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART II U5 



association work in the state of Iowa will be continued as it is continued 

 in the other states. In some respects, I am ashamed of the state of Iowa. 

 I did not know, until I learned through the reports of the Greater Iowa 

 Association, what some of the greater possibilities of the state were, and 

 I did not know, until I came down here this morning, that thirty or 

 thirty-five per cent of the people of our colleges are leaving the state to 

 go into other work. I want to say to you that along this very line of 

 agricultural improvement, Illinois, Minnesota and Missouri, and the 

 states around Iowa, are bidding far better than Iowa for the best men 

 that we have today for that kind of work. In the state of Illinois they 

 are taking away from the university and the Agricultural College the 

 very best men we have; they are coming to Iowa and taking the boys of 

 Iowa and putting them ahead in their institutions in those states. As I 

 have listened to the talks this morning, and, as I have thought a great 

 many times of the great things that Iowa might do, I have wondered what 

 the state was going to do in an educational way. Now, it is up to us to 

 get into the game. I have thought many times the reason we did not 

 take advantage of these things which the other states have taken ad- 

 vantage of is that we have made money too easily in the state of Iowa. 



Another thing we are lacking in is advertising. Now, I do not know 

 any better way than to take the information we have at the colleges and 

 experiment stations to the Iowa farmers. The man who needs it is the 

 man who does not get to attend the fairs and institutes. He is the man 

 who needs somebody to step right onto his own farm and take that work 

 up with him. I think that is one of the ways of getting at the man who 

 stays at home on his own farm. To give you an illustration, on one of 

 the farms in Black Hawk county the owner had experimented with four 

 different varieties of corn. These were put in the same field, side by 

 side. One of the neighbors came in and said, "Peterson, how did my corn 

 do?" I guess Peterson had asked him about his corn, and he said, "How 

 did my corn do?" He said it was not worth a damn, and Peterson said 

 it is not worth cussing about. He said, "I don't believe in this testing 

 of corn; it will do no good." He says, "do you know how I test corn?'' 

 "I go out in the field and husk some corn and throw it inside of a box 

 and the next spring plant it and cultivate it just like anybody else does," 

 and, he says, "I depend on the Lord to do the rest.' Peterson looked at 

 him and said, "If I had that good a standing with the Lord, I would not 

 select my corn, either." The average local corn of Black Hawk county 

 yielded about eight bushels more per acre. Now, I want to give you one 

 other example of that, then I am through. You people are all acquainted 

 with Professor Bowman. Last year he noticed one of the varieties of 

 corn we had there, and he said to me, "Where can I get some of that 

 variety?" I said, "I do not know. Practically all of the seed we have 

 now is gone." He went to the man who had originated this variety of 

 corn, as he understood he had some seed corn, but he told him it was all 

 gone, and he did not succeed in getting any there. So Professor Bowman 

 went into the corn crib and picked out twenty-five bushels and tested It, 

 and, out of that twenty-five bushels, threw away ten bushels, so the seed 



