690 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



What is all this here, my friends? This is the result of scientific farming. 

 Those people out there in Iowa, those college men at Ames who sent these 

 things to us, and have thus offered us the study of the corn, have gone into 

 this matter of the corn as thoroughly as you study any other matter of 

 psychology or anything in the history of the human soul. This is the great 

 study of America — agriculture. Why, if we had as much sense, and 

 exercised as much care as to the marriage of people and the production of a 

 fine humanity as these farmers have and exercise about the producing of 

 finer corn, we would have a superior race of people in the next century. 

 There (indicating) happens to be an ear in which all the lines are straight. 

 Here (indicating) is an ear which is ripe; and there (indicating) is an ear 

 which is not entirely ripe. Notice how deep is the grain. Some men are 

 largely cob. This (indicating) was bred for grain. See how nearly the 

 cob is hidden? There is just enough of it to carry the grains. That is 

 enough, in man, or corn. This stalk (indicating) produces a great many 

 ears, and over there (indicating) are stalks that are more stalk than ears. 

 These things have come through long, long years of trustful regard to laws 

 of progress. 



You go into the Agricultural Department, at Washington, and you will 

 realize this: That the greatest engineer of modern times is not the mechan- 

 ical engineer; not even the electrical engineer. He is the chemical engineer; 

 he is the bacteriological engineer; he is the biological engineer. The fact 

 is the American farmer is going to be the greatest of engineers. My friends, 

 in this college, are trained engineers and they are going to get to the poten- 

 cies of the soil beneath the immediately perceived soil, which anybody can 

 farm if he will. 



The other day one of these chemical engineers said, "I can get more 

 gold out of the dump of this mine than my predecessor got out of the mine 

 itself." The farmer is the man who is going to realize, that, beneath the 

 surface of things there are untold riches, and invitations for him to apply 

 science to their revelation. 



My dear friends, shall the Church, shall spiritual leaders, stand here and 

 believe the hopeless doctrine that we have tolerated in regard to the spiritual 

 education of our children? Suppose there had been given as much attention 

 to the spiritual education of our young people, our little ones, as has been 

 given to the development and education of this corn. " Oh," you say, " it 

 is every day corn; itisvery pretty, but it is just corn." No, no. I tell 

 you that this is native corn, converted and sanctified. I will go further — a 

 religious secret is here — it is corn with a cross in it. How did this fine corn 

 come to be thus perfect and beautiful? Just as once a man down in Concord 

 took the grape, and crossed it, and crossed it, again and again; until all the 

 sour got crossed out of it, and all of the sweet got crossed into it; so men 

 have crossed the corn, and crossed it again. The grape grew large; it grew 

 larger in its finer self, and smaller in its coarser self. And yet he crossed 

 it, and crossed it, and crossed it, while he fed and fertilized it, until it lost its 

 uneducated and disobedient Adam, and became, as it were, a saved thing. 

 If it was not Christianized it was at least converted. Now, this is converted 

 corn* 



