TWELFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV 163 



have asked me how it comes that we grow such hig men in this coun- 

 try. I tell them that a country that can grow big horses and big" cattle 

 can grow big men. 



Now, although yoU have done a great deal, you have not succeeded 

 in all your undertakings; you have failed in your cooperative move- 

 ment. And why? Because you didn't trust each other. And why didn't 

 you trust each other? Because you didn't know each other. It is 

 knowledge that begets confidence, and it is a great calamity that you 

 failed in that respect. You will do better by and by; you will get to 

 know each other better; you will stand by each other better; and when 

 you stand by each other and get the confidence of the people who sell 

 you corn and cattle, you will be a power, not merely in this state, but 

 in the nation for good. 



Now, I am deeply interested in this live stock business, whether it 

 be dairying, cow raising, horse raising, or mutton growing, because 

 upon its prosperity and permanence depends the salvation of this state. 

 Iowa farmers are now looked upon as away up, because they are big 

 enough to milk cows and feed cattle. The permanence of the fertility 

 of this state depends largely upon the stock business. Do you know 

 that we took in in the first half century millions of acres of virgin land 

 that needed neither spade nor tilling, and yet with all that for forty 

 years our yield per acre of grain fell regularly. What does that mean? 

 It means that we have lost in fertility more than we took in. There 

 are no more, new acres to be taken in, and the question that we must 

 solve now is, how to bring up the fertility of our land. It can be done 

 without live stock raising, but it can be done easier with that than in 

 any other way. Hence I say that upon the permanence of the live 

 stock business depends the permanent welfare, the permanent pros- 

 perity, the permanent greatness of Iowa. 



Now, we have heard a great deal about the high price of cattle and 

 corn. Why gentlemen, that is here to stay. You will never see cheap 

 cattle and cheap corn again for any length of time. The whole world 

 complains about the high cost of living the whole world will continue 

 to complain for an indefinite period. Why? Do you know that from 

 1870 to 1900 we took in the greatest body of land upon which the sun 

 shines? We put it under cultivation almost in a night. We hastened 

 the opening up of it by the homestead laws — a subsidy to agriculture, 

 and, like all other subsidies, a damage in the end. We further stimu- 

 lated the opening by giving away a lot of land to the railroads. What 

 was the result? From 1870, after the waste of the war had been re- 

 paired, until 1900, we fed the world at half price. We built up great 

 cities all over the world; we changed the whole face of civilization, 

 because we were furnishing men food at half the cost. To put it in 

 another way, we mined the fertility of our soil and sold it at the cost 

 of mining, and now we are buying back the fertility and paying a big 

 price for it with commissions and freights. And so this high cost of 

 living is normal: that is all. 



