456 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



pert is just a man who is qualified to give advice to the practical nan 

 who is obliged to devote all his time to the detail routine work of the 

 farm. 



I want to refer in a few words to one of the problems which I know 

 has attracted a good deal of attention in Iowa, and is attracting much 

 attention in other states, and it has been discussed a thousand times, 

 and that is "Decrease of Rural Population." So far as I can see this 

 problem in this and other states there are three outstanding reasons why 

 farmers will leave a state and go to some distant place where they think 

 they will find better conditions for working and for living. They be- 

 lieve they can make more money, and believe they will find better school 

 facilities, and they believe they will find better social facilities. I do 

 not know to what extent these reasons are justified, but I do know well 

 that whether the reasons are justified or not, as long as they exist in 

 men's minds they will cause those men to pick up and move away, and 

 you could not stop them from going even if you should build a Chinese 

 wall around a state. They are going to go. So, Mr. President, I be- 

 lieve that it puts upon this agricultural state — upon the agTicultural so- 

 ciety of the state and the agricultural college great responsibilities. I 

 think that we should exert ourselves to the utmost to ascertain the true 

 facts. Is it true that a man can do better in a financial way by leaving 

 a farm in Iowa and working upon a farm in any other distant place? We 

 can think of instances where one has gained by moving. That, is to be 

 expected. But I believe — this is only my personal opinion — I believe that 

 the large majority of those who go out of this state into distant Canada, 

 go to worse conditions than those which they leave behind them. I re- 

 member meeting one of these men not long ago. He had gone out of 

 New York state to Canada and got a farm there, and he had gone in high 

 hopes that he would be able to make himself rich in a very short time. 

 He spent just one year in the new country and then he came back again, 

 and on a visit to me he said he had enough of it. He said, "In a few 

 months more there will be another crop of suckers go out there," and 

 then he would sell his farm, and move back to the place that he came 

 from. 



It is possible some go to some other land because it is cheaper, and 

 because they find it is difficult in a state that is well settled like this, 

 and the other states of the east, they find it is difficult to get money 

 for the purpose of buying and equipping their farm. If that is the case, 

 should not we carefully consider some method by which funds can be 

 loaned to deserving persons? Very briefly, I want to tell you what is 

 done in Germany along these lines. There a man who is deemed worthy 

 of the assistance is able to borrow a sum of money for the purpose of 

 purchasing land, or to improve his farm, on a basis which permits him to 

 pay that loan in the form of annual interest payments. The loans are 

 so well secured that they are made at a very low interest, two to three per 

 cent. There is added to that perhaps one and one-half or two per cent 

 as annual payment on the principal, and each year after the loan has 

 been made, the borrower pays a total of five per cent or less, which covers 

 both the interest on the sum which he has borrowed, and it provides also 



