268 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



This convention represents only one of the great agricultural indus- 

 tries of this magnificent home of ours. The men here represent more or 

 less directly an industry that touches three-fourths of the farms and the 

 farmers of this State, that has invested in it 1,500,000 cows, and lands to 

 graze them and barns to shelter them. They represent directly and 

 immediately the second greatest manufacturing industry of the State, 

 comprising 650 creameries and a capital of $4,000,000, that gives employ- 

 ment directly to 1,400 men and indirectly to many more, that furnishes a 

 product that has a value of $20,000,000. The dairy interest of this State 

 here represented counts its annual product in creamery butter, dairy 

 butter, cheese, by-products of skimmed milk and buttermilk of a value of 

 nearly or quite $40,000,000, 10 per cent of the whole agricultural products 

 of the State, an still is less than the cattle or hogs or corn we produce, 

 and is nearly equalled by several other lines of the Iowa farmers' indus- 

 try. The cows of this State produce an annual value that would pay 

 for themselves, replace the capital invested in creameries and pay the 

 wages of the buttermakers of tne State. The men of this convention pin 

 their faith to the dairy cow and the creamery, and their faith is shared 

 by 90,000 creamery patrons and their families. 



But rich as the Iowa farmer is in material things, he is richer still in 

 opportunity. The generation before us came to this virgin soil with 

 simple tools and little agricultural knowledge. In spite of this handicap 

 success of a brilliant character has been attained. But this is an era of 

 scientific investigation of cause and effect in agriculture. The generation 

 before ours was distinguished by success achieved by physical industry 

 that meant long hours for the team and the farmer and hired man. The 

 present generation of farmers is distinguished by the same kind of indus- 

 try coupled with more of knowledge of how to make that work effective. 

 We do better than our fathers did. The next generation will be distin- 

 guished for not less of proper physical effort but for vastly more of the 

 "know how" than were their fathers or their grandfathers. This speaker 

 is not the first to note an enormous increase of interest in scientific agri- 

 culture during the last five years, the agriculture that is based upon 

 applied brains, the agriculture that combines hard work with hard com- 

 mon sense and scientific information. The number of farm papers taken 

 has lately quadrupled; the efficiency of our agricultural schools has 

 increased by leaps and bounds. The extraordinary interest in conventions 

 such as this indicates simply that the farmers of this State are deter- 

 mined to know all that anybody knows about the most successful ways to 

 handle Iowa's agricultural problems, that they are determined to find out 

 all that can be found out in regard to Iowa's resources and how best to 

 take advantage of them. The farmer reads the crop reports and finds 

 that the average production of corn is but 34 bushels per acre; he wants 

 to know how to make this average 60 bushels, and he is going to know 

 and to put in practice his knowledge. The dairy commissioner's report 

 tells him that the cows of the State produce but 140 pounds of butter 

 each per annum; he wants to know how to make this 240 pounds, and 

 he is going to achieve that increase. He knows that the present low 

 averages have made him rich. He is properly proud of his achievements, 

 but is not so taken up with boasting as not to see the possibilities that 



