PART VII 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



State Agricultural Convention 



WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1912. 



The convention was called to order at 10 :00 A. M. by Mr. C. E. 

 Cameron, president of the Iowa State Board of Agriculture. Mr. 

 0. A. Olson, vice-president, presided while President Cameron 

 delivered the following address: 



PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS- 



C. E. CAMERON, ALTA, IOWA. 



Again we meet for the Fifty-eighth Annual Meeting of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture of Iowa. It is with pleasure I welcome you to 

 this meeting. It is a source of gratification to the officers of the de- 

 partment to meet you, especially this year after the successful fair of 

 1912. 



It would be difficult for me to single out any department and tell 

 you the success of the fair was due to that one department. Iowa has 

 the reputation of having the best balanced fair in the United States, 

 and I think she is justly entitled to that distinction; hence it shows 

 that her departments are on a parity with each other. Why should 

 not Iowa have the greatest fair in the United States, or, for that mat- 

 ter, in the world? Iowa is recognized as the greatest agricultural 

 state in the Union, then why not the greatest fair, situated in the most 

 fertile valley, taken as a whole, that has as yet been found and in- 

 habited by a class of people as intelligent and progressive as are to be 

 found on the face of the globe. 



The fair this year did not come up to our expectations in attend- 

 ance. In the last five years the attendance has increased from 216,000 

 in 1907 to 271,000 in 1911, and this year we had only a little over one 

 thousand increase over the attendance of 1911. The average increase 

 per year for the last five years was 11,000, or a total of 55,000 in that 

 time. Never in the history of the fair had a better program been pre- 

 pared, the departments were all well filled, premiums had been in- 

 creased in all departments, and we had great faith that the increased 

 attendance per year according to the last five years would be shattered. 

 Some of us even had our minds on the 300,000 mark. Prospects 

 never looked brighter, never in the history of the state have there been 

 better crops, prices have been good, and the people are prosperous. 

 Then what was the trouble? To my mind the trouble was with the 

 railroads, For over twenty years, with ih^ exception of on© year, tb© 



