SEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV. 123 



Interest of the State of Iowa. It is the thing that most of all makes Iowa 

 conspicuous and notable throughout the Union, and unless we do well with 

 the natural gifts that God has given us nothing will come of it. There- 

 fore, I say our. There are two things, as it seems to me, that we ought to 

 very carefully consider. First, it is our duty to make the acres of Iowa 

 soil produce all that they are capable of producing. Second, we must 

 transmit to our posterity these acres of Iowa soil just as fertile and as 

 productive as we received them from those who went before us. These 

 two things I think constitute the natural maxim in the interests of agri- 

 culture in this State. 



That leads me now to the next suggestion — the wonderful, the mag- 

 nificent, and I sometimes think the mysterious, awakening in agriculture, 

 the science of agriculture, that we have witnessed within the past few 

 years. I believe ycu may read the high growth of human race. You 

 may become familiar with every step that humanity has taken in order 

 to improve itself and acquire further information, and you will find 

 nothing parallel with the growth of the people of this State in the senti- 

 ment in regard to the science of agriculture. I have been amazed as I 

 have gone about this State from institute to institute to observe the deep 

 and pervading interest which the people have displayed in probing into 

 the mysteries of nature; the interest they have manifested in acquiring 

 all the knowledge of the earth. This awakening is most gratifying, must 

 be gratifying to you and to everybody. For in the first place to pass to 

 the material benefits which have come from it, it makes uetter men and 

 better women of you; it lifts you up and you see beauties that you never 

 saw before. You find an interest in merely turning over the ground that 

 you never found before. The veil which nature has let down before your 

 eyes in regard to many of its operations has been lifted and you see 

 wonderful operations, the effect of which you knew before but the progress 

 of which you never dreamed of until the book of the science of agriculture 

 was opened before your eyes. And, therefore, the very first and probably 

 the very highest benefit which we have received from this revolution in 

 our conception in regard to agriculture which has really occurred in the 

 last ten years, is to give us all a higher and better conception of our 

 relations, not only to the rules of the universe but to our fellow men. 

 But I shall not dwell upon that particularly, but pass to the material ben- 

 efits in this intense study, this intense absorption which you find the men 

 of agriculture and horticulture in this State growing out of the new and 

 awakened interest in the science of agriculture. We all desire to make 

 our calling successful. While I hope that it is not the principal motive 

 of any life to make money, it is one of the things which we most always 

 have in view, and therefore if this increased opportunity, this increased 

 interest in the science of agriculture related only to the moral and spir- 

 itual development you would probably find somebody vastly better qualified 

 than I to speak of that phase of it. I am now going to speak of its 

 material advantages. I do not pretend to know of my own knowledge 

 the things I am going to relate; I am simply taking them from men who 

 are qualified to speak. I try to learn something every day, and when I 

 get hold of a man who knows anything about farming, if he has the 



