172 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Upon motion of Mr. Nicholas the reports of the Secretary, 

 Treasurer and Auditing Committee were accepted as read. 



President Sykes: Mr. Wallace has suggested that as a number 

 of members who are here from dififerent parts of the state are not 

 familiar with the pledge sj^stem adopted by the lioard of di- 

 rectors of this association in 1910, it might be well for me to 

 make a little explanation here, so that you would understand 

 what we mean when we refer to a pledge given to this association. 

 Following is a pledge that I have taken since coming here, from 

 a man in a county where we have not heretofore been repre- 

 sented. It says: 



"Believing that the work carried on l)y the Corn Belt Meat 

 Producers' Association has been and will be of benefit to me and 

 to every farmer and stockman in Iowa, I hereby agree to pay 

 the sum of $2 in cash, and agree to pay the association a like 

 sum each year for a period of four years; said money to be used 

 to defray the necessary expenses of the association in carrying 

 on its work. Payments to be made wherever the member does 

 his banking business (at your local bank, in other words), Jan- 

 uary 1st or June 1st of each year." 



The regular constitutional dues to this association, as you all 

 understand, are $2. It was recognized by the board of directors 

 that $2 was not sufficient to maintain this organization, and that 

 they would have to adopt some plan whereby they could secure 

 more money to carry on the work, as every y,i?ar the work of 

 the association became heavier and required more money to meet 

 the expenses of it. And so the board figured out the plan that 

 if the grain farmers and the renters would pay the regular dues 

 of $2 a year, and we could get the stockmen to give $5 a year, 

 it would make it fair to each, and at the same time would pro- 

 vide funds enough to carry on the work. Of course that did 

 not prevent anybody from giving $5 if he wanted to. We have 

 a number of grain farmers who never feed any cattle Avho have 

 given pledges to this association for $5 a year, because they be- 

 lieve it is a worthy organization and should be maintained. There 

 is at least one man with us today who has given a pledge of $10 

 a year to this association. He tells me that when he called at 

 the bank to pay his pledge, they said: "You must think a 

 good deal of this organization to give $10 a year to it." "Why," 

 he replied, "this organization doesn't owe me anything. The 

 fact of the business is that if I would give $25 a year to it, I 



