632 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 



extension work in tlie future. The principal plans we have for develop- 

 ment work will be along the line of the county agent and the corres- 

 pondence course in agriculture for teachers; and I will speak of the 

 correspondence course first. We are at the present time working upon 

 a correspondence course in agriculture for rural teachers. The one way 

 in which we will be able to get information into the hands of every boy 

 and girl in this state is through the medium of our public schools. Our 

 last legislature appreciated the fact when it passed a law requiring the 

 teachers of Iowa to teach agriculture in the rural schools, beginning with 

 September 1, 1915. But in order for teachers to teach agriculture in 

 the rural schools, they must have some facts to present, and a method of 

 presenting them; and we are at the present time working upon this 

 correspondence course, and we are planning to place facts in the hands 

 of the teacher, and at the same time place a method of teaching in her 

 hands, so that when she gets the lesson that we send her, she will be 

 able to teach it in turn to the pupils under her charge. Now, this 

 question has been discussed for a long time, and some have assumed the 

 position that it is impossible for a teacher to teach our boys and girls 

 anything about farming. Let's get that idea out of our heads if we may. 

 A teacher can not tell a child how to work a problem in arithmetic; the 

 child has to work that problem for himself. What the teacher does i3 

 to encourage that child to work out the problem for himself; and, if we, 

 through a correspondence course, can furnish this teacher with material 

 which she, in turn, can turn over to the child, and encourage it to work 

 these problems out for itself, we have rendered a great service to agricul- 

 ture in this state. And when the teacher in your section goes to teach- 

 ing agriculture in the schools, you want to get back of it and help it out. 

 I have high hopes of what may be accomplished through the teaching of 

 agriculture through our rural schools, if we will take that attitude 

 toward it. Take this question of soil fertility: it is entirely possible 

 to work out facts and lessons for rural teachers so that they can im- 

 press upon the pupils under their charge the tremendous importance of 

 maintaining the fertility of the soil, and start them to thinking. This 

 little information that they give these pupils may be the leaven which 

 will finally leaven the whole lump, and inspire them to go forward and 

 study deeper into these subjects. We feel that this course for teachers 

 is. essential, and that it will accomplish great results throughout the 

 state if it can be given a thoroughly fair trial. 



The other line of work is the county agent work. We have been talk- 

 ing about a greater Iowa, and the difficult thing when you go to talking 

 about that is to really comprehend the greatness of the state. So I am 

 going to divide the state of Iowa by 100 — or by 99, to be more exact — 

 and take one county in the state. We can understand the greatness of a 

 county, I think, a little better than we can the greatness of the state. 

 The average county raises 90,000 acres of corn, approximately; about 

 half as much oats and wheat, and somewhere in the neighborhood pf 

 20,000 brood sows, and something like 14,000 milk cows; and the live 

 stock and the grain crop and the land, representing a capital of millions 

 of dollars, constitute the wealth of the average county in the state. The 

 average yield of corn in the state of Iowa today is about thirty-five 



