266 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



after hearing Sam make it, I am convinced it was not. You know I 

 have been at these State dairy conventions a good many years, and the 

 first time they put me on I made a speech about dairy business, and all 

 the good looking girls were there, but mighty few buttermakers; then I 

 tried something else, and all the buttermakers were there and nobody I 

 was making my speec to. Last year I said something about centralizers, 

 and they were all there, so I thought tonight it might not be out of place 

 to say something of the State in which we live and the people who make 

 up her citizens. 



Nature has been particularly kind to the 56,000 square miles embraced 

 within the boundaries of this State. We live in the midst of the modern 

 garden of Eden. A few small areas of the earth's surface are famed for 

 abundance of peculiar productions, but no other spot is the equal of this 

 State in diversity of abundance or in uniformity or capacity to produce. 

 The rude aborigine knew this fact. He looked upon the quiet streams, 

 the placid lakes, the sweeping prairies, the timbered valleys, the undu- 

 lating hills; he contemplated the herds of buffalo and deer and the flocks 

 of fowl that thrived here and furnished him subsistence; he was soothed 

 to rest by the lullaby of summer breezes and roused to action by the 

 sharper blasts of fall and winter; he saw the richness of autumn har- 

 vests and the beauties of spring; and in an ecstacy of contentment and 

 satisfaction he unconsciously gave voice to that name dear to us all, 

 Iowa, the beautiful land. 



It was a beautiful land to him, but much more is it a beautiful land 

 to us. Its forests of cornfields in richest green or more striking yellow; 

 Its wide prairies of timothy and blue-grass and clover and grains; its 

 cattle on a thousand hills; its towns and railroads and factories; its 

 homes and groves and comforts speak to us of nature's beauties and 

 bounties that go to make up a State fit to be called Iowa. This State 

 produces more corn, more cattle, more hcgs, more butter, more poultry, 

 more food products than any equal area on the face of the earth. Four 

 hundred million dollars worth a year, $1,100,000 a day. The world turns 

 to Iowa for something to eat and never yet has turned to us in vain. 

 Let Iowa fail for a single year to produce a surplus and the civilized 

 nations of the world would feel the lack. "Of all that is good, Iowa 

 affords the best." Of all that is best Iowa produces the most. 



Down East they say of us pityingly, "Iowa is an agricultural State." 

 We ought to thank God that it is so. Times are always better here than 

 elsewhere because our crops are so varied in character and so uniformly 

 abundant in quantity that our prosperity is continuous. The Iowa farmer 

 does not depend on a single crop, but if he did his soil and climate and 

 rainfall are certain to be about what he desires. States west of us have 

 had to pass the hat when single crops have failed. Iowa never had a 

 crop failure. Earthquakes and conflagrations, famine and pestilence and 

 pests, political corruption and bad government have afflicted other lands 

 and other States, but none of these things come nigh to Iowa. Other 

 States have been afflicted with strikes and lockouts and hungry citizens 

 looking in vain for work. The Iowa farmer is profitably employed all 

 the time, and his living and comfort are certain, for the sole reason that 

 Iowa is a real agricultural State, and her welfare is perpetually insured 



