598 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



If we could get together in one pile all the eggs our hens lay in a year, 

 and then make an omelette out of it, that omelette would be about three 

 square miles in area, a rather large order. If you would stretch that 

 omelette out into a long string an inch wide, like I have seen at some 

 restaurants, it would make a band of egg omelette 20,000 miles long, 

 about long enough to reach around the world. If we should stand our 

 chickens up in a line, one arfter another, it would make a column long 

 enough to reach from here to New York City, and back again, and then 

 to New York City once more, and we would have some roosters left over 

 to crow about it. 



The value of this hen fruit every year is greater than all the gold 

 mined annually in the famous California gold fields. Our butter crop 

 is greater than all the gold and silver taken out of the Colorado mines 

 annually. 



But let us consider some other crops. Missouri beats us in the number 

 of turkeys, ducks and geese. So does Illinois. Missouri beats us again in 

 bees. They did not count the bees, they just counted the swarms, or 

 colonies. 



Our wonderful production of live stock places us in the first rank in 

 agriculture in the United States. It is said that 40 per cent of the live 

 stock marketed in Chicago, the greatest live stock market in the world, 

 comes from the state of Iowa. 



Outside of live stock, hay and chickens, we fall behind generally. 



Wisconsin produces more butter. 



Illinois produces more cereals of all kinds, by a hundred million 

 bushels. 



We produce 14,000,000 bushels of potatoes; but New York produces 

 48,000,000; Michigan, 38,000,000'; Wisconsin, 31,000,000. Maine produces 

 twice as many bushels of potatoes as Iowa; Minnesota produces more by 

 12,000,000 bushels; Pennsylvania produces 21,0'00,000, and Ohio 20,000,000. 



Iowa produces 232,000 bushels of sweet potatoes. New Jersey produces 

 3,000,000 bushels; Virginia, 5,000,000; North Carolina, 8,000,000 bushels. 

 Others higher than Iowa are Missouri, Kansas, Delaware, Maryland, 

 "Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, 

 Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and California. 



Of other vegetables, Iowa produces five million dollars' worth. The 

 Ohio crop is worth $11,000,000, over twice that of Iowa. Other states 

 exceeding Iowa are: Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 

 vania, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Maryland, Virginia, North 

 Carolina, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and 

 California. 



Our sugar beet crop is worth $35,000. The Michigan crop is worth 

 $4,000,000. Colorado's crop is worth $6,000,000. Other states having a 

 bigger crop than that of Iowa are Arizona, California, Idaho, Illinois, 

 Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oregon, 

 Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. 



There is perhaps one lesson for us here. Perhaps we should begin to 

 give greater attention, as a state, to some of these other crops, as we may 

 have time from attending to our corn and live stock. Perhaps we 



