EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK-PART IV. 187 



The President : ' ' The State Fair and Exposition, ' ' by the Hon. 

 John Cownie, will be the next address. 



Mr. Cownie : As you are no doubt aware, the business in which 

 I am now" engaged requires me to travel a great deal over the state. 

 Our state institutions are widely scattered, and I am thus afforded 

 an opportunity of seeing the methods that the farmers practice in 

 agriculture in different parts of the state. I had supposed when I 

 was at home on my own farm in Iowa county, that I had seen some 

 of the worst work done on farms that possibly could be done, but 

 when I travel throughout the state, I am inclined to believe that we 

 were about as good farmers in Iowa county as can be found any- 

 where. It was my good fortune to pass forty years of my life on a 

 farm in Iowa county surrounded by men who had been taught agri- 

 culture in Scotland and England, and there was always a rivalry 

 as to who would do the work best. We had plowing contests every 

 year, and I know if I Avere to tell some of the farmers of Iowa of 

 the work done there, not only at contests, but all the time, they 

 would scarcely believe it. When one goes about the state and takes 

 notice of the poor plowing done and the poorly built, tumbled down 

 fences on almost every hand, it certainly brings to one's mind the 

 need of better training of our farmers. We now and then find 

 men in our state institutions who clearly show their thorough train- 

 ing in farming. We have had a man at one of the hospitals for the 

 insane that turned off work equal to that of any farmer in the 

 state of Iowa. He is insane, but he can plow. A few years ago we 

 had a man at the state penitentiary — he never would tell me where 

 he came from, but I am satisfied he came from England — and that 

 man planted thirty-five acres of potatoes and I would take an oath 

 there wasn't one inch of variation in the furrows all the way 

 through. I was early taught to carry a rule with me to measure 

 the width of my furrows. I was told to plow nine inches deep, and 

 my father used to stick the rule down and if there was the slightest 

 variation, he would say, ' ' Now, Johnnie, you 'aint getting that deep 

 enough; this furrow here is not wide enough." Now that is the 

 training I got in the work, and naturally I like to see work done 

 that way yet. 



THE IOWA STATE FAIR AND EXPOSITION. 



BY JOHN COWNIE. 



While we all recognize the almost marvelous growth of Iowa as an 

 agricultural state and the progress that has been made in developing our 

 material resources, it is particularly gratifying to know that the State 



