644 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



A combination of soil studies of this kind can not fail to bring together 

 a fund of knowledge regarding the soils of a given area which will prac- 

 tically revolutionize the soil management practises of that area, if the 

 land-owners are alive to the opportunities which are opened up for them. 

 If there be any doubt regarding this point, let it be remembered that 

 Illinois agriculture can produce many instances of sections where entirely 

 new methods of soil management are now in vogue, because of the com- 

 bined influence of the soil survey and field investigations, the purpose 

 of which were to determine the fertilizer requirements of the soils. 



Iowa is a great agricultural state; her climate, soils, and position with 

 reference to markets, all tend to make the production of farm crops within 

 her borders a profitable business. But even now, after a half century of 

 cropping, many Iowa soils are going back in productive capacity, and 

 they will continue to go back even more rapidly unless better methods 

 of soil management are adopted. In our judgment, there are no factors 

 which will count for as much in this direction as a state-wide detail soil 

 survey, and the installation and maintenance of a group of soil experi- 

 ment fields scattered over the state in such a way as to have at least 

 one station on each of the principal types of soil. The Iowa Experiment 

 Station is ready, and even anxious, to carry on both of these lines of 

 work. Will the farmers of Iowa urge the legislature to make the neces- 

 sary appropriation for the work? If they do this, there will soon be 

 under way in our state a helpful series of soil studies. If they do not 

 ask for financial support for this work, Iowa must continue to lag behind 

 most of the other states in the Mississippi Valley so far as soils investiga- 

 tions are concerned. 



REPORT OP THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE IOWA BEEF PRO- 

 DUCERS' ASSOCIATION, HELD AT DES MOINES, JAN. 29, 1913. 



Crops marketed on the hoof as beef cattle bring larger profits than 

 when marketed directly as grain and hay. That was the first reason 

 why more beef cattle should be grown in Iowa, urged by the speakers at 

 the annual meeting of the Iowa Beef Producers' Association, held at Des 

 Moines, Jan. 29, 1913. 



The next big factor in favor of beef production rather than grain 

 farming for Iowa farms was that less fertility is sold from the farm 

 when crops are marketed as live stock products rather than sold through 

 the elevator. 



There was a three billion bushel corn crop produced in the United 

 States last year and Iowa grew more than her share of this, but there 

 was less beef produced in Iowa in 1912 than in 1911. The supply of 

 live stock is less at the beginning of 1913 than at the start of 1912 said 

 President Escher in his address at the evening meeting of the Association. 



"There is no danger of overproduction of beef in Iowa. It will re- 

 quire at least seven years at the very least for the United States to get 

 back to her normal supply of beef cattle, and by that time the population 

 will have increased another ten millions." 



