SEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK-PART III. 61 



The investigations in the laboratory and the experiment stations of 

 the agricultural department have been of incalculable benefit to our coun- 

 try, and the good work has but commenced. The irrigations of the desert 

 and waste places, the cultivation of many of the food products of other 

 lands and adapting them to our own soils, the encouragement of tree 

 planting and the preservation of our forests, the rescue and protection of 

 animal and plant from scourges and diseases, the discovery and produc- 

 tion of new food products, the prevention of the adulteration of foods and 

 drugs and the precluding of the use of diseased unwholesome or uncleanly 

 meats and other foods, and the ascertaining and imparting the best meth- 

 ods to be pursued in all branches of agriculture, are some of the efforts 

 put forth by the agricultural department of our government. 



Iowa is acknowledged to be the foremost agricultural State in the 

 Union, and the agricultural interests should ever be given that just and 

 full recognition that their magnitude and importance demand. 



We do not have to remind the people of Iowa that they inhabit a 

 goodly land and filled with milk and bread and butter. They have known 

 that for a long time. And this year we have some corn. In fact, it is 

 only occasionally that we have to go down into Egypt or Missouri for corn. 

 Last year, accoixling to the Year Book, we raised more than 346,000,000 

 bushels of corn, and this year the government and state experts agree 

 that we will have at least 40,000,000 bushels more than last year. The 

 efforts of Holden, Cownie, Wallace, Atkinson and other apostles of corn 

 selection and corn cultivation have apparently been effective in the larger 

 acreage and the larger yield. And if their instructions are followed by all 

 our farmers Iowa's production of corn will soon be doubled. 



But corn is not Iowa's only crop. We raise annually nearly 7,000,000 

 hogs, which aggregates more than Illinois and Missouri combined. We 

 nave a million and a quarter of hcrses and nearly 5,000,000 of cattle. We 

 raised last year 184,000,000 bushels of oats and a large amount of other 

 cereals; 5,000,000 tons of timothy hay, besides a vast acreage of clover, 

 wild hay, millet and other forage. 



The hens of Iowa laid nearly 80,000,000 dozen of eggs, worth ten and 

 three-fourths million dollars, besides the value of fowls was over eight 

 millions. 



We made over 82,000,000 pounds of butter. Figures where they reach 

 the millions are bewildering. This is somewhat of the present measure 

 of Iowa as an agricultural State. With all harvest productions Iowa is 

 capable of greatly increasing them. The methods of farming are continu- 

 ally improving and land values are constantly increasing. With farm 

 lands at $100 and upwards per acre the methods of the Iowa farmer must 

 necessarily be more exact and his efforts more intense. 



Seven years ago the Twenty-eighth General Assembly very wisely 

 passed a law reorganizing the State Agricultural Society and establishing 

 the State Agricultural Department for the specified object of "the promo- 

 tion of agriculture, horticulture, forestry, animal industry, manufactures 

 and the domestic arts," which department is placed under the manage- 

 ment of a body known as the State Board of Agriculture. And it is 

 made the duty of such board "to look after and promote the interests of 



