NINTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART V 185 
compulsory and many of them fail to file any reports whatever. If the 
securing of the state aid depended upon their filing their report in this 
office we would be able to make a much better report each year on the 
institute work. 
There are minor changes in the law as to the powers and duties of the 
board with reference to the state fair which should be looked after. All 
of these matters should be discussed at this time by the board and placed 
in the hands of a committe to draft bills to be presented to the legislature 
for such changes as deemed advisable. 
I further believe that with the assistance of the commercial bodies of 
Iowa that a fund could be secured for the establishment of a department 
of publicity and advertising. Its special line of work would be to gather, 
compile, disseminate facts and statistics upon the great possibilities we 
have to offer the homeseeker. There is quite a tendency among our own 
people to advise the young man to go to some newer country. I believe 
that literature should be, placed before him showing the opportunities by 
following a system of more intensive farming. He gets such literature 
from the south telling him how he can make five hundred dollars per acre 
raising Bermuda onions; from the west telling him about making from 
one to two hundred dollars per acre raising potatoes; from Michigan telling 
him of the great fortune awaiting those who engage in the growing of 
celery, and so on. This is the kind of literature which attracts. I have 
here a little item which I clipped from the paper a few days ago telling 
of a crop of onions raised by a gentleman in Chickasaw county, from 
which he received returns of more than five hundred dollars per acre. 
A short time ago, while Secretary of Agriculture Hon. James Wilson was 
in the city, a gentleman from the northern part of the state came all the 
way to Des Moines to tell him of his great success in raising tobacco. 
Another newspaper item tells us of a net return of two hundred dollars 
per acre upon pop corn. When these things occur in other states the 
state department, the real estate dealers, or someone else spreads it 
broadcast. The lack of proper publicity of what can be done right here in 
Iowa is responsible for so many of our pople leaving or that imigrants do 
not come. It depends entirely upon what one expects to do with his land 
whether the price he has to pay is too high. At the state meeting of the 
Commercial Clubs being held today in the rooms of the Des Moines Com- 
mercial" Club this very question of publicity is being discussed. 
In our financial report made to the convention yesterday we set out 
an itemized statement of the receipts and disbursements for the year. 
You will notice that the item for improvements and repairs in the state- 
ment is given at $53,663.69. To this must be added the amount still 
due upon contracts for the completion of the Administration Building of 
$4,715.36. This brings the total amount of improvements for the past 
season up to $58,379.05, exceeding by $23,000.00 the amount in the treas- 
ury at the beginning of the year. In voting to build the Administration 
Building last spring we anticipated about $8,o00.00 of the receipts of this 
year's fair; the additional $15,000.00 was used in the building of the second 
section of the proposed horse barn and for the completion of the Adminis- 
tration Building. The expenses for the past year, other than for the fair, 
were about $700.00 greater than the receipts for the same sourse. This 
