574 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



We hope those of our readers who visited the fair noticed the soy bean 

 plants which were exhibited in connection with the agronomy exhibit of the 

 college. This plant will, we believe, be used far more as a catch crop 

 to furnish a cheap supply of home-grown muscle builders, either In 

 the form of hay or grain, on those farms which are temporarily short of 

 clover or alfalfa. The results of rotation experiments were portrayed 

 in connection with this department. Corn grown four years in succes- 

 sion on an acre of ground gave a total money return of $70.40, while the 

 returns from two crops of corn, one crop of oats, and a crop of clover, 

 from an acre of ground were $78.85. Those farmers who insist that the 

 way to make money is to grow corn at every opportunity should have 

 studied this part of the exhibit carefully. A large placard claimed foir 

 the rotation the following advantages: First — It maintains fertility. 

 Second — It gives better physical condition to the ground. Third — Pre- 

 vents washing. Fourth — It diversifies agriculture and saves labor. Fifth 

 — Drives out insects and weeds. 



The fruits of Iowa have this year been remarkably free fi'om worms 

 and fungous diseases, consequently the horticultural display did not at- 

 tract the attention it should. The work of the apple tree borer, the plum 

 curculio, the grape phyloxera, the fall web worm, the brown plum rot, 

 etc., etc., was illustrated. In case of insect damage, the insects them- 

 selves were on exhibition. All of these troubles bother Wallaces' Farmer 

 readers every year, and we are quite sure that half an hour could not have 

 been more profitably spent than talking with the man in charge of this 

 exhibit as to the habits and methods of controlling insect pests which 

 may have been bothering on the home place. One of the most interesting 

 things in connection with the horticultural display was the smudge 

 pot exhibit. Smudge pots have been used with great success in the west 

 to prevent frost damage to fruit. Of all the foes to the Iowa fruit crop, 

 frost is the most to be feared. By means of smudge pots, however, blos- 

 soming fruit may be protected even though the temperature may be sev- 

 eral degrees below freezing. 



In the domestic science coimer of the college exhibit was much to 

 interest farmers' wives. Charts showed the feeding value of different 

 foods. The importance of using cleanliness in feeding bottle babies was 

 demonstrated by statistics which prove that of all the babies which die 

 in the summer in Iowa, 93 per cent are bottle fed. Fourteen per cent of 

 all the deaths in Iowa last year were babies. Conservation of our tim- 

 ber lands, of our coal lands, and of our soil fertility is of the utmost 

 importance. Conservation of human life has not received the attention 

 it should. The saving of babies' lives exceeds by far the importance of 

 saving forests, coal lands, phosphate beds or soil fertility. 



The weed exhibit deserved more attention than it received. Wallaces' 

 Farmer would have been very glad, indeed, if every farmer in the state 



