274 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



man will do practically as much work as two or three did in the time 

 that we were boys on the farm. I do not want to disparage this crx of 

 "Back to the Farm," but I just want to call your attention to the fact that 

 when we get down to the bottom of it and think about it, we do not have 

 such a bad condition after all. It has created this demand and these 

 prices that we have. The greater number of men you have to feed, the 

 greater is the demand, and greater will the price be for the products. 

 That is what raises the price of land in Iowa and other states of this 

 Union. This is what has occurred to nie when I have thought of this 

 matter of transportation, — that it has made the farm. 



Another thing that lies at the very foundation of our prosperity, what 

 we must have, is fundamental, is more production. More production all 

 the time must be the demand, and it is the thing that men must set them- 

 selves for in this country. If it is true, as James J. Hill, the great empire 

 builder of the Northwest, has said, that we are to have in this country 

 within fifty years two hundred millions of people, then it is true that we 

 must increase the supply to meet this great demand that is coming. 

 That is one of the things that I conceive the county fair, the district 

 fair and the State fair is for, to teach people, these fundamental facts 

 that lie at the very foundation of their prosperity and their life as a peo- 

 ple. It is the end and the very purpose, I think, of the fairs — when 

 you get right down to what they ought to be — develop that thought and 

 that spirit and that necessity among the people — more production all of the 

 time. It would be, of course, necessary to promote every interest that 

 would bring greater results and greater efficiency. We talk about effi- 

 ciency in all lines of life, and it is absolutely essential that we do become 

 more efficient, and the county fair and the district fair ought to teach 

 the people, in what they do and what is exhibited there, the necessity 

 for efficiency, and teach efficiency itself, or they do not perform their 

 real purpose among the people. Now it seems to me that that would be 

 true, and they ought to teach better conditions on the farm. The condi- 

 tions tonight, I say, are better than they ever were before on any other 

 night that ever came upon us, but still there is always room for im- 

 provement everywhere, and the fairs, in my judgment, ought to tend, 

 in their purposes, to better conditions on the farm. Of what value is 

 it if I go to a county fair, for instance, and see the results that are there, 

 pass through it in a desultory sort of way, and look at the stock and 

 everything that is on exhibition there? The thing that ought to come 

 to the people is this question: How did you obtain these results? How 

 did you produce what you e-xhibit here? How did you bring that about? 

 Unless that thing is brought to the people, unless that lesson is gotten 

 out of what is there by the people, then it seems to me that fairs fail 

 in what they ought to be. Of what value is it that I go there and simply 

 see a fine jar of fruit? There it is, beautiful, rich, inviting, and every- 

 body stops before it, but where is the person who put up that jar of 

 fruit? She ought to be there to tell those who are interested just how 

 that was done, otherwise I pass by and it does me no good. It does 

 no good at all. So I feel that so far as every feature, every depart- 

 ment of the fair is concerned, it ought to be so managed, that there be 



