98 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



certain duties and obligations to hiin. Now, if that one thought 

 can be driven home to all people, it will be marvelous what we 

 will do in the next few years. 



During the period of the war, the increase in oats, barley, corn, 

 wheat and rye in Iowa was 27 per cent over the average for the 

 ten years previous to the war. Fifty thousand men taken out of 

 the State of Iowa, from the farms, and more, including laborers, 

 and yet that increase was brought about. What did it? It was 

 co-operation. The Farm Bureau, the county agent, the agricul- 

 tural college, the extension department, all working together, and 

 all working with the farmer, and the farmer working with them, 

 resulted in increasing the production of the state in those lines 27 

 per cent. Somebody may rise up and say that Nature helped 

 with a good year, or something of that kind. There may have 

 been something to that, but we do know that with a decreased 

 man-power the production was increased that amount, and I am 

 satisfied that it was co-operation among these two — that is, the 

 farmer on the one side and the various state institutions on the 

 other. And in that list I should include the agricultural society, 

 because we had very able assistance from the association, and 

 especially from the secretary in the seed-corn campaign that was 

 put out. 



Now, we have some wonderful herds of cattle, horses, hogs, 

 sheep, and so on, in Iowa, but they are all owned individually. 

 It takes some money, as you can testify — a large amount of 

 money — to carry on oiie of those lines of industry. I think a 

 move that ought to be started in the State of Iowa, and that 

 would be very helpful, would be to organize the community, l?t 

 the state step in if she wants to with a little money, and let ^he 

 community buy a good bull or a good stallion and start a strain 

 for that community. The community could then start doing what 

 the individual has been doing, instead of having a few individual 

 herds scattered throughout the state that are good, and a lot of 

 herds that are mighty poor, or a lot of farmers that have herds 

 that do not amount to anything, we would build up a standard in 

 the state and establish a reputation of having something to sell, 

 that would bring money and greatly improve the conditions. 

 New ideas of that kind have to start some place. Land is selling 

 now all the way from $200 to $400 an acre in Iowa. If we are 

 going to get returns from that land, we have got to get a better 

 price for the stuff we sell, and we have got to get more stuff to 



