230 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



kept busy with its other regular work, so that it is out of the question 

 for us to take up each inquirer's letter and answer it as should be done, 

 that is in detail. If this were attempted, it would of course mean some 

 machinery for securing the information from the various localities in the 

 state. 



"It is likely you may be able to estimate the value to Kansas of my 

 publicity work better than I. You know pretty well what it is worth to be 

 placed before the world in a favorable light, particular'y when any inves- 

 tigator will find that nothing but facts have been set forth. 



"Quite a few strangers still judge Kansas by the early history of her 

 pioneers, and I feel that we have to a considerable extent corrected that 

 misapprehension, and that, too, is worth something. 



"Very truly yours, 



"F. D. COBURN." 



In this letter there is a simple plan and a plan that is within your reach. 

 It may be that a more elaborate scheme, including a board or commission, 

 will be more satisfactory later, but it is difficult to get an elaborate 

 scheme into motion. It is difficult to organize a large piece of machinery 

 and get it well greased with the money needed to operate it. The Coburn 

 idea has this to commend it. You can adopt it and use it with the office 

 machinery you already have. At the most it will not be necessary for 

 you to employ more than the part time of a first-class man and provide 

 him with a litt'e money for clerical work and postage. Coburn of Kansas 

 carries on an extensive publicity work for his state and a mighty useful 

 publicity work and at' the same time he does many other things. 



It seems to me that it is wholly within the province of the State Agri- 

 cultural Society to do what Coburn of Kansas has done. Your society 

 would be promoting in the best possible way the agricultural interests 

 of the state by carrying on a campaign of publicity that would educate 

 our people to an understanding of the opportunities that there are in 

 Iowa. Of the need of advertising along this line neither you nor other 

 men can longer have doubt. It is time that somebody did something to 

 keep Iowa folks and Iowa money at home and no organization is in better 

 position to make a start than yours. 



The President: We have on the program this afternoon a 

 man who has kindly consented to talk to yon, and I present to 

 yon Lientenant-Governor Harding of Sionx City : 



Lieutenant-Governor Harding: Mr. Chairman and Qontlemen — It is a 

 pleasure to me to meet with the farmers of Iov>'a. You are all actively 

 engaged in the business. You know there is a false notion in the minds 

 of some bankers and business men in the state that they are not farmers. 

 The fact is that everybody who lives in Iowa and has any part in the in- 

 dustrial life of the state is a farmer, and therefore it seems to me that this 

 fair association is one of the very important associations within the state. 



I have no prepared speech to deliver this afternoon. This you will 

 know from the fact that the program committee did not assign me a 



