FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART I. 17 



and that Professor Holden has done more for the institutes of Iowa 

 than all the farmers combined. It is true that each one of these mem- 

 bers thinks perhaps he can raise a little better corn; it may be possi- 

 ble lie thinks he can raise a little better wheat, but he does not go \ip 

 there and tell you how he does it. He is keeping it as a State secret; 

 it is vory seldom he will tell you. He is not putting out his hands to 

 keep rhtj other fellow from running into a stone wall (I was raised in 

 the State of Maine, where we had those things; in Iowa I should say 

 a wire fence). There is not one of the presidents or secretaries of the 

 institutes in the ninety-nine counties who can make him tell you how- 

 he does it. I have known Curtiss-to ride all "night, sitting up in the 

 common coaches, as he had to, to get into a program at ten o'clock the 

 next morning, without even having an opportunity to take a bath at 

 one of our hotels. We have had a little too much harmony. Stir up! 



Thk President: We have with us F. D. Cohiirn of Kansas. 

 We would Hke to hear from him in reo-ard to how thev conduct 

 institutes in that state. 



REMARKS OF F. D. COBURN. 



I think it is due to mys'-lf to correct your Honorable president and 

 say that I am not a professor. Possibly I am the only man in this 

 room who does not profess. 



A Statf- like Iowa, that has; produced a Grime'?, a Kirkwood, a Cur- 

 tiss and a Wilson, and a Beardshear. inevitably must have the foremost 

 place in the galaxy of states, and when a man from the outside, es- 

 pecially a man from the remote and woolly west comes to Iowa, he does 

 not come to instruct or to profess, but to sit at the feet of your wise men 

 and absorb such wisdom as he is capable of absorbing. 



I notice from your program, and from the remarks and papers here 

 this morning, that you have up the subject of institutes. I am not 

 familiar with your institute law and do not know what it may be. 

 I come from a State which has no institute law, or no series of insti- 

 tutes which are conducted under State auspices, although we have inci- 

 dientally or practically a great many excellent institutes. The most 

 that our State does is to make a small appropriation for^paying the 

 expenses of the gentlemen from the agricultural colleges to attend to 

 institutes that are worked up by the local people. The general scheme 

 is to have two professors from the Agricultural College at each of these 

 institutes, especially if they are invited, and they usually are;- and it is 

 not uncommon, also, to have a professor from the State University, 

 which in our State, as your own, is an entirely different institution from 

 the Agricultural Ck)llege. 



One comment on the position taken by the gentleman who read a 

 most excellent paper a few minutes ago. He seems to think that hav- 

 ing these gentlemen from the institutions, for instance, is not the wisest 

 2 



