310 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



to raise in this land of ours everything that we need for ourselves. Now, 

 assuming that that is possible, supposing that we do raise, that we are able 

 to produce everything that we want in our own land, then it must stand to 

 reason that if there is a surplus we have got to sell it, but we cannotsellit to 

 other nations unless we buy of them. 



Another thought that leads to it is not whether that will be true or not, but 

 we must give our attention today, more than ever before, to the problems 

 within our own borders. As to whether our foreign trade may be increased 

 in this country, and as to whether we are going to come into competition 

 with others in that foreign trade, and so on, will work out in some way or 

 another. But the point is this — we have met great advancement in our 

 methods of production, in our educational institutions along the line of 

 agriculture, and our experiment stations have been making wonderful 

 progress. We have records of the same that cover volumes, telling us of 

 careful scientific research. And men today are not putting agricultural col-* 

 leges and professors of the same in a class by themselves and considering that 

 men who occupy positions in the classical colleges are a superior race. Not 

 at all. They are coming to understand that the agricultural problems that 

 have been worked out here require the highest thought and brains, the 

 greatest persistency and most careful work that is demanded by any professor 

 in the land. 



And so this work itself, this study of plant life and animal life, looking 

 at the economical side alone, is as fascinating if not more so, than any other 

 realm of science and it has its direct bearing upon our Nation, because one 

 of the great men of the middle of last century said that our perfect agri- 

 culture must lay as the basis of all industries. 



And so we come to get great thought of all. We have been dealing in 

 the last half century with mechanical laws and chemical laws looking to 

 increase our production either to growing more corn on the same area or 

 making a smaller area produce the same amount of corn that we now grow 

 on larger field. In all these ways we have been increasing the product of 

 the farm, but what have we been doing in increasing manhood? for in 

 dealing with those laws, in working out this mechanical side of our industry 

 and chemical side as well, we have been dealing with things that tend to 

 make better men and women for, relatively speaking, we do not need as 

 large manhood and womanhood to deal with these things as we do when 

 we have to protect it, to so distribute it so that it will make the very 

 highest and best in our land. 



I would say one word about the conditions of today and the problem we 

 have to solve. Some of the problems are of such character that we have 

 very little of the past for our guidance and direction, and the interests con- 

 cerned are so immense in their bearing upon the welfare of the people that 

 we feel that we must go slow. We feel that there are great interests at stake 

 and that we must go slowly but surely, just as Lowell has said "that the 

 politician goes by the guidance of a lantern-, but the statesman goes slowly 

 but surely, guiding his feet by the stars." So that we must enter into the 

 life of the future, and enter into the legislation, and into all things that 

 effect the distribution of our products today; enter into the whole relation- 

 ship which must exist between one part of the country and the other; enter 



