546 IOWA DEPAETMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



fiber from the cotton plant; second, that under the old order of things in 

 the preparation of that clothing one-half the work was involved in sepa- 

 rating the seed from the fiber; third, that in the great matter of clothing 

 humanity Mr. Whitney multiplied by a ratio approaching (2) two the 

 producing power of the human hand. 



We shall now run by the period from A. D. 1800 to 1845, which In- 

 cluded a number of important inventions in order to have time to treat a 

 little more fully the balance of the century. 



In the period from 1845 down to the present the power of the human 

 hand to produce life's necessities has increased by leaps and bounds. 



Wheat may be termed the first of life's necessities and may as well 

 come first in order. 



In tne decade in which your speaker was first stranded on this planet, 

 viz: between 1840 and 1850, it was the work of one man within the limits 

 of a proper seed time to sow ten acres of wheat and later to harvest the 

 same. In this year oi grace, 1907, within the same limits as to proper 

 seed time, it is the work of one man to sow and later to harvest one 

 hundred acres. 



We shall next consider for the same period the increment of potenti- 

 ality in corn raising between 1840 and 1850. It was a good man who 

 could within the proper time limits as to seed time, plant and harvest 

 six acres of corn and meet the following conditions: First, to plow that 

 six acres with an iron shear bolted onto a wooden frame; second, reduce 

 the ground to a condition of tilth, using as a harrow a limb cut from 

 a tree; third, mark it out both ways with a front (bench) "bob;" fourth, 

 plant it by hand, counting out three kernels to the hill, 3,540 hills to 

 the acre; fifth, go over it four times with a single shovel plow; sixth, 

 to cultivate and hill up with a hoe each one of the 21,440 hills in the field; 

 seventh, and finally, on the 10th of July, lay it by free of grass and 

 weeds. Yes, it was a good man who could do that, and it was not 

 often done. 



And the man who in 1840 could meet those requirements can now, 

 with modern tools and modern process, "lay by" in the same degree of 

 culture and cleanliness, on the 10th day of July, a field of sixty acres. 

 And this is annually done on thousands of Iowa farms. The ratio be- 

 tween the past and present productiveness of labor in the corn field, it will 

 be noted, is also (10) ten. 



These two ilustrations indicate sufficiently for the purpose of our argu- 

 ment the increase in the grain producing power of the American farmer. 

 But the increment in producing power in other fields in the last century 

 has been even greater than in grain raising. 



Allusion has already been made to the Bessemer process of steel 

 making. 



My hearers are aware how great a matter steel is, that on our ability 

 to make steel which shall be satisfactory both in quality and price, the 

 whole question of transportation is predicated. 



Well, it so happens that in steel making both under the Bessemer 

 and open hearth processes the productiveness of labor is anywhere from 

 50 to 100 times greater than under the old processes of hand making. 



