FIFTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IX. 633 



bushels per acre, but there are men in every county raising forty-five, 

 fifty-five or sixty bushels ])er acre. Perhaps some of the men present 

 today have an average of sixty bushels per acre covering the last several 

 years. Why is that difference? What is the reason for it? Is it the 

 difference in the original fertility of that soil, or is it due to difference in 

 methods of farming? We feel that it is more largely due to differences in 

 the methods of farming, and if one man can raise sixty bushels of corn 

 per acre, certainly the average of the county ought to be more than 

 thirty-five. 



Let me call your attention to some of our experiments along this line. 

 During some years past, we have conducted farmers variety tests in 

 connection with our county farms. At corn planting time we go out 

 through the county and collect eighty or ninety samples of seed corn from 

 different farmers — just the kind of corn that will be planted. We plant 

 this in plots by hand, so as to get it exactly right — usually three different 

 plots, in order to have our records exact. These experiments have been 

 conducted for the last ten years at different places, and the summary of 

 this work will show that the seed collected in this way, when taken to 

 the county farm and planted side by side with the average, will produce 

 an average of ten bushels per acre more than the average seed planted 

 in that county. If that is true, that if we could replace all the seed in 

 the county by seed taken from the one-tenth of the best farmers in that 

 county, it would mean an increase in yield of from thirty-five to forty- 

 five bushels an acre. It is entirely possible to increase this yield from 

 thirty-five to forty-five bushels, and on up to fifty or sixty bushels. 



Take the question of milk cows, with 14,000, and an average yield of 

 butter-fat around 150 pounds per cow. If the boys in the country could 

 just learn that a stool was made to sit on always, and not to pound cows 

 with, they would increase that ten pounds per cow, and there you would 

 have an increase of 140,000 pounds. 



There is a tremendous opportunity in every county, and we believe 

 the best way is to organize it and place someone in the county to take 

 care of it. The county agent organizes a short course here, an institute 

 there, and a farm tour in another place, and conducts demonstrations upon 

 different farms throughout the county. He is the man in the county who 

 gives special attention to the business of that county, and we are thor- 

 oughly committed to the purpose of developing this county idea through- 

 out the state, and placing a county agent or a local representative of the 

 college and extension department in these different counties. This man 

 is on the ground, sees what needs to be done, plans the work, has his 

 special problems bobbing up to confront him continually, and he calls 

 upon us and we send out men who are specialists along the lines of the 

 different problems, to help him in their solution. 



Just a word, and I am through. We have been talking about a greater 

 Iowa. This is a fine sentiment, and we need to get back of it and keep 

 it going. But, after all, the future greatness of Iowa depends primarily 

 upon the fertility of the soil. We have nothing else in the state except 

 a few coal mines, and whether or not Iowa reaches the place that she 

 ought to reach will depend primarily upon the methods we use in handling 



