154 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



co-operation, organization and education. The Corn Belt Meat Producers* 

 Association has accomplished much, but your association includes for the 

 most part only the larger feeders. In your endeavor to secure better con- 

 dition you should have the active support of all. Therefore, the members 

 of this association should be actively interested in the organization of 

 farmers' clubs, granges, community breeders' associations, test associa- 

 tion, live stock associations, and other agricultural societies. Once estab- 

 lished, the farmer organizations will begin the study of economic produc- 

 tion and distribution. They will quickly see the fallacy of shipping a 

 stock steer to Chicago, v/ith the attendant loss due to shrinkage, carfare, 

 and commission fees, when the same steer is needed on a near-by farm. 

 Once seeing this need, distributing points will be established in every 

 county. The men who have stock steers for sale will send a letter to this 

 distributing point, telling what he has for sale, and the man desiring stock 

 will make inquiries at the same place. Thus the feeder and the producer 

 will be brought together, to the financial advantage of each, and to the 

 ultimate benefit of the consumer. 



The problem of distributing feeding stuff once solved, the farm organi- 

 zations can turn their attention to the fattened product. They will ask 

 themselves: "Why all this needless expense and shrinkage due to ship- 

 ping fat animals long distances? Why ship the dressed meat back into 

 Iowa for the Iowa consumer? Why not kill and dress the meat at home, 

 and thereby build up manufacturing centers in Iowa? The people em- 

 ployed in these centers will become the consumers of our surplus products, 

 and laborer and farmer, consumer and producer, will be benefited. The 

 present system is manifestly uneconomic and can not stand the test of 

 time. 



The organization of farmers is slow, hard work. In order to be suc- 

 cessful, it needs the active support of all who are really interested in 

 improving agricultural conditions. It invites every one of you to get 

 your coats off, roll up your sleeves, and go to work. Somebody says this 

 method takes too much time. When you wish to raise a crop of corn, you 

 first prepare the seed bed thoroughly, even if it does take extra time. The 

 seed bed in this case is the farmers. The way to prepare this seed bed is 

 organize; it matters not so much what the organization is, whether club, 

 grange, breeders' association, test association, or whatever, just so it 

 brings the farmers together. Once together, we can bring about changes 

 in the beef producing situation in Iowa that will be of the utmost impor- 

 tance to the future advancement of the industry. 



In conclusion, let me say that the cattle feeding situation in Iowa de- 

 mands that greater care be given to the utilization in beef production of 

 feedstuff s that now go to waste; to growing homegrown protein in the 

 form of clover and alfalfa; to the care of that important by-product of the 

 feed lot, manure; to a more economic method of bunching stock and feed- 

 ing cattle, and finally, the most important of all, to the organization of 

 farmers. 



