112 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
years has been toward the city, and I hope you will not forget, here in 
this great valley, that our wealth is in our lands, and here is the granary of 
the world, and somebody must scientifically cultivate this land and get 
the most out of, because God put us here for that purpose. There is a 
glare and glamour and a glittering about city life. It is supposed 
to be the business and the social standing, but we all know what dan- 
ger there is in fire and how many wings are clipped by the light of the 
candle. And so the Great White Way that they talk about in the 
cities is full of peril and danger which you never find out on the good 
old highway. 
While the city is the center of business, you all know that but ten 
per cent of the men who engage in business make a success; ninety 
per cent make a failure in a business career. But there are some things 
in the city business life that the farmer must learn. Business prin- 
ciples are same in every relation of life, and system is what has made 
the business man a success in the city. System means the stoppage of 
waste, and so the farrher must, if he succeeds, have better business 
methods upon the farm. I remember that Philip Armour one time on 
the witness stand, when questioned regarding his profits, said, "Gentle- 
men, if you will simply give me clear the tongues of the animals I kill, 
it is all I care for by way of profit." And John D. Rockefeller used 
to say (before his recent cross-examination), when asked how he made 
his money, that he made it out of the by-products of his business — 
the stuff that used to go to waste. And so it is system that has pre- 
vailed in the industrial life of this nation. Even the professional men 
have adopted it. If, unfortunately, you drifted into a doctor's office, 
you have gone onto a card, which the doctor keeps in his card-case 
until you go down to the last half acre, when it is taken out and torn 
up. And if you go into a dentist's office, your teeth are numbered and 
put on cards. And if you drop into a lawj^er's office you get onto a 
card. And they tell me this last campaign was run on the card sys- 
tem! One thing which I wash to emphasize in contrasting city with 
country life from the business point of view is that what is needed 
now on the farm is some means of stopping the tremendous waste that 
is occurring there. You want to adopt the card system and take reckon- 
ings now and then, to see whether this particular branch of your busi- 
ness is paying, and if not, find out why. INIost men fail in business be- 
cause there is a waste that they can't stop. 
W^hen we come to the social life of the city, it is all supposed to be 
there. But don't you know that there is really more caste, more classes, 
more snobbery, right here in America in some of our great cities than 
there is on the continent? You don't find social democracy in the large 
city today. Where do you find it? Out on the broad acres; there are no 
such classes there. And what of the social life in the city, full of con- 
ventionalities? The heart is all taken out of it. And what do these peo- 
ple do? Why, they hark back to the farm, and the first thing you hear 
about is a "Country Club." There is^ that beauty of scene that reminds 
many of them of the old days which I spoke about a little bit ago, when 
they went barefoot — that scene which is more beautiful than any of their 
pictures, no matter how expensive they may be. A man never came 
