216 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



showing. While that is a hard confession to malce. it is a fact. Three 

 years ago we did not have over three butter-makers in the State that 

 we could bet on every time; today we have a dozen of them that we 

 know we can send to a national convention and they will come back 

 with a creditable showing; we have" dozens more on the way; we have 

 the foundation laid for a hundred more and, if we can keep up the 

 tame work among the butter-makers that we have done in the last two 

 jcars, Iowa will again take the position which she so proudly held at 

 one time, — the best and greatest butter producing State in the Union. 



These results have largely been brought about through the work 

 of our agricultural college and through the untiring efforts of our State 

 Dairy Commissioner and his assistants. I believe today, in fact I know, 

 that we can take up the trail of the Iowa State Dairy Commissioner and 

 his assistants and follow him from one end of the State to the other 

 by the work he has done and the results produced. Not only that, J 

 can say that we have in the State of Iowa today a set of traveling men, 

 selling machinery, selling supplies, selling every commodity used in 

 the creamery, who have been turning themselves into instructors. They 

 have taken a pride in butter-making in Iowa, have preached the doc- 

 trine of good butter-making and have kept up the enthusiasm, and with- 

 out them it would have been impossible to accomplish what we have. 



I want to say in regard to the butter-makers' association, — we 

 E.tarted these organizations two or three years ago and they have ex- 

 ceeded our expectations. Butter-makers took a greater interest than 

 we expected; it aroused a spirit of competition in them which has re- 

 sulted in great good, and I want to urge the butter-makers to continue 

 these organizations. I do not want you under any circumstances to 

 drop these meetings. Although we may not see the benefits directly, 

 there has never been a meeting held but some good has been done. I 

 want to urge you to keep these meetings up and I want to again refer 

 to the aid of the picnic and urge you to incorporate that also in the 

 year to come. 



One year ago I appointed a committee on legislation with the end 

 in view of getting State aid. if such a thing were possible. Unfortu- 

 nately for us, there has been no session of the legislature since we 

 appointed that committee, so that they have had no opportunity to act 

 upon it. We are today laboring under disadvantages which no other 

 State has to contend with, for they are Avell fortified and we have no 

 assistance. I want to urge upon you that we are now ready to com- 

 mence work (someone has suggested next Monday) of going before the 

 legislature and getting an appropriation for this association. We have 

 been in existence now for twenty-seven years without missing a single 

 raeeting, and if we get the small appropriation asked for we can carry 

 on two or three meetings during the year and do some good for the 

 dairy interests. 



I will say that whenever we have tried to get State aid they have 

 either entirely ignored us or have failed to realize the magnitude of the 

 dairy interests — what it really means. They failed to realize that the 

 dairymen of the country represent the most wealth of any one branch 



