THIRTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 455 



be engaged in that kind of work in Iowa to a large extent. Already 

 a number of counties have been organized. Dean Curtiss is in corre- 

 spondence with quite a number of others. Heretofore our work has been 

 largely of a temporary character, so far as work in ditferent districts 

 was concerned. Short courses and institutes have been held at different 

 points for a short time and then the experts passed on to other places. 

 Now the plan is to continue these efforts, but at the same time have an 

 expert in the county who will assist in the introduction of improvements 

 which are being taught, and the underlying idea of all this is to enable 

 the farmer not alone to produce larger crops, but to produce crops more 

 economically. That is the way the farmers' profits are going to be in- 

 creased. We hear a good deal about farmers being rich. If they are 

 they certainly deserve it. Not long ago I took occasion to study this 

 question in another state. I found that during a period of about twenty 

 years the prices for which the farmers were selling some of their products 

 had increased about one hundred per cent. The prices of other products 

 increased something like twenty per cent during the same period. Many 

 people will say farmers must be getting rich. They are getting one 

 hundred per cent more for their products than they did twenty years 

 ago. But that is not necessarily proof that they are getting rich. 

 Further search shows that these farmers are paying more for a large 

 amount of supplies, including labor, than they were paying ten years 

 ago. As to increase of farm prices one hundred per cent, I want to call 

 your attention to the fact that comparison is based upon prices twenty 

 years ago, which literally may be called impossible prices. The prices 

 of farm products twenty years ago did not begin to represent the value 

 of the labor put into those farm products, plus the value of the fertility 

 they were removing from the soil, and the reason that farms in some 

 great sections of the country, and especially of this state, were believed 

 to be prosperous, if they were truly prosperous, with such prices as ob- 

 tained twenty years ago, the reason for it was they had a great bank 

 account in their soil, and they drew on the principal of that bank account 

 and sold it by the carload. It is not fair to compare prices of farm prod- 

 ucts with other products over the same period, because at the beginning of 

 that period of twenty years, farm prices were on an impossible basis, and 

 manufacturing prices were on a self-supporting basis. 



I believe that this county expert plan which is coming into vogue in 

 the different states, promises great things. I believe that the time is 

 going to come when there will not only be a county expert, but there will 

 be town experts, and smaller groups of farms in turn will have their 

 own experts. I so believe because I know of farmers in some sections 

 that have gone down into their pockets and employed an expert to come 

 and live in their midst and give his entire time to the problems upon 

 their farms, because they find it is profitable to do that thing. I remember 

 of a farmer speaking of a farmers' institute. He said, "You don't think 

 I could go, do you, my neighbors would think I did not know how to 

 farm." That attitude of mind is rapidly passing away. The fact is we 

 do not know how to farm, and many of the experts do not know all 

 about it, but we are all anxious to learn one from another, and the ex- 



