FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IV. 209 



The principal commodity of the farms in general in Iowa is corn. It 

 brings in more money to the farmers, is worth more than any other crop; 

 the value of the corn crop exceeds all others by a considerable amount. 

 Last year over three hundred million bushels of corn were raised in Iowa, 

 worth over one hundred million dollars. Next to the corn crop comes the oat 

 crop at thirty and one-half millions (I get these reports from the weather 

 and crop statistics of the State of Iowa); next is the hay crop at twenty-six 

 millions; then down to the wheat crop seven millions; rye crop four millions, 

 and barley and potatoes, I believe about the sarae; from that to rye at 

 eight hundred thousand, and flax about seven hundred thousand. This is 

 about the amount these crops were worth to the farmers of Iowa last year. 



We manufactured in Iowa about one hundred and forty million pounds of 

 butter— seventy-five million pounds shipped out of the State and sixty-five 

 millions consumed in the State, making a total of one hundred and forty 

 million pounds manufactured in the State of Iowa. This, at the average 

 price of the State, is worth about twenty-eight million dollars. When I 

 gave you the value of the corn crop I gave it all to you, excepting probably 

 the corn stover as a by-product; when I gave you the value of the oat crop, 

 I gave you its entire value excepting oat straw as a by-product. The make 

 of iDutter last year was worth twenty-eight million dollars, and its by-prod- 

 ucts amount to a great deal more; that is skim milk, which is estimated by 

 different agricultural schools and experiment stations, at all the way from 

 twenty-cents to forty cents per hundred pounds. This adds five million dol- 

 lars more to the value of the dairy products, which makes thirty-three mil- 

 lion dollars as the value of the dairy product of this State. You see this is 

 exceeded by nothing in the State except the one product of corn alone. 



I am giving you these figures for this reason, that the people of the State 

 of Iowa, the legislature of the State of Iowa, do -not appreciate what this 

 industry means to the State. I think if anyone =were to go out and make 

 the statement that the dairy products of the State exceeded anything raised 

 in the State, with the single exception of corn, not one out of ten would 

 believe him. Yet these are figures and these are facts. We have, in addi- 

 tion, over seventeen hundred thousand cows in the State of Iowa, worth 

 around thirty million dollars ; we have eight hundred creameries in the State 

 of Iowa with their equipment, worth two million dollars more. If we could 

 add to this the value of the calves, and give an accurate estimate of the 

 value of the dairy industry of the State of Iowa, it would come very nearly 

 up to the corn product of the State. 



I am pleased to be able to say to you today that for the first time in the 

 history of the State we have received somewhere nearly the amount of recog- 

 nition and the amount of appropriation from the State last year that we are 

 entitled to, and that our business warrants ; and I am proud to stand before 

 you and say that last year, at the last session of the State Legislature, we 

 received more than we had for any ten years in the history of the State up 

 to that time. We have been able to positively impress the legislature with 

 the importance of this industry, and we were rewarded, as I stated before, 

 to a greater extent than ever before. 



I wish to give you these full particulars because I believe they will be 

 gratifying to you, and I know will place us in a better position before you, 



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