FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IV. 307 



ADDRESS. 



MR. TUCKER, PRESIDENT MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY, MASON CITY, IOWA. 



Mr. President, Members of the Iowa State Dairy Association— \ hardly feel 

 that it is proper for me to interrupt the discussion that has been carried on 

 by Professor Eraser. I regret exceedingly that I have been unable to meet 

 with you during your sessions, but when I heard that Governor Cummins 

 had the grip I prcoeeded to do likewise as a preparation for this afternoon, 

 and it has been that which prevented me from meeting with you and, as it 

 is, I shall not take much of your time. I simply wish to fill my part of the 

 engagement in promising the officers of your association that I would be 

 present this afternoon, and that is the reason I am here. Not that I have 

 any large chunks of wisdom to throw out to you to digest for the coming 

 year, but to say just a word concerning some observations that I have been 

 making for the last few weeks. 



We understand that we are in one of the richest states agriculturally in 

 the Union. It is between two great rivers, the Missouri and the Mississippi. 

 As we think it over, our minds naturally turn to that fertile country of 

 Messenia which lies between the two great rivers Euphrates and Tigre, 

 where once there was a rich population; but now where civilization has 

 passed. How much we received from that civilization we know not, but we 

 know there are the remains of a highly agricultural life there. We see the 

 remains of their irrigation canal, but the desert has, in the years since civ- 

 ilization flourished there, been creeping upon it, onto this fertile soil, and 

 because of the laxity of the government, because of existing conditions 

 there, there has not been the rejuvenation of that country, and how to rem- 

 edy that is the question for the world to answer. It has been said that the 

 Emperor of Germany had his eyes turned in that section of the country, and 

 it has been rumored that those irrigation canals would be dug out and the 

 country again would blossom like the rose. 



But, in the meantime, the question we have to solve, is how shall we use 

 the great agricultural facilities of this new country between two great rivers 

 in which we live. As I was thinking of meeting with you this afternoon, I 

 thought of my own experiences on the farm and I thought of the advance- 

 ment and progress in agriculture since 1850. There were indications of 

 progress and there was lots of preliminary work done preceding that date, 

 but since 1850 we have seen great progress in the development of agricultural 

 machinery, agricultural methods, and in the organizations whereby 

 men co-operate one with another, and some wonderful ideas concerning 

 agriculture have been worked out since that time. We tell about the 

 development of the plow; we know something of the crude things that were 

 used for the breaking up of the soil. We know of the development in agri- 

 cultural machinery, and I may say to you, without perhaps asking your 

 pardon for referring to myself personally , that it was my privilege to rustle 

 with the hard work of a New England farm and I had the experience of dip- 

 ping candles and making them into moulds for the home. We had the old 

 methods in the dairy We did not have to bother ourselves with any arith- 

 metic in New England, not at all; but, on the other hand, I might say we 

 did not bother ourselves with the income from the dairy because we did not 

 use arithmetic, compution and calculation. 



