188 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Agricultural Society has kept pace with the general prosperity and was 

 never stronger financially or in the confidence of the people than it is 

 today. The annual exhibits of live stock, consisting of the choicest 

 animals of the respective breeds that can be found, has done more to 

 create an interest in the improvement of farm animals than all other 

 agencies combined. 



The magnificent exhibits of farm implements and machines have en- 

 abled the dealer and the farmer to see for themselves the large and varied 

 lines of all the leading manufacturers, that without a fair of this kind 

 would have been known to but a few. 



In poultry, dairying and horticulture everything possible has been done 

 to educate the people to higher standards, and that success has crowned 

 the efforts is abundantly attested by the place Iowa now holds among 

 her sister states. 



In the amusement department of the fair new attractions ar* being 

 constantly sought after and while still encouraging the fullest exhibits of 

 live stock, dairying, horticulture, farm implements, and machinery of all 

 kinds used on the farm, would it not be well to add some new features? 

 I do not mean to make new departments merely for the novelty, but to 

 add something that would be of lasting benefit to the farmers of Iowa. 



With this end in view I desire to offer a few suggestions in regard to 

 some new features that would at least be of interest to the young men 

 on the farms of Iowa, many of their fathers no doubt being convinced 

 in their own minds that there is little for them to learn in regard to 

 practical work on the farm that they do not already know. 



One feature that would prove of immense benefit would be a plowing 

 contest every year, not for the benefit of manufacturers of plows, but 

 to test the skill of the plowman. I am aware that many will say, "I 

 know all about plowing, having spent my life on a farm." But let me 

 tell you that the chances are that you never saw a well plowed field 

 in your life and with all your experience, if you were to apply for a 

 position on a farm where agriculture is a science, the chances are that 

 if put to work with a plow you would not be allowed to go across the 

 field a second time. 



As I travel over the state and see the farmers "plowing around the 

 field" with the breastworks thrown up against the fences, or the huge 

 ridge at the commencement of a land, with a ditch at the finish, with 

 miniature hills and valleys, following each other as fast as the plow will 

 make them, I often wonder how long it will take for the farmers of Iowa 

 to learn that agriculture is a science. 



As plowing is now done on the great majority of farms, a townsman 

 who has perhaps never seen a plow can do as good work as the man 

 who has been plowing all his life. Is such a condition creditable to the 

 farmers of Iowa, and does it not belittle the high calling of a farmer 

 that he cannot do his work with the skill of an ordinary mechanic? 



It requires years of patient application to become an expert carpenter, 

 blacksmith or shoemaker, and it requires just as careful training of the 

 hand and eye to become a good plowman. 



Let those who have seen plowing done in a proper manner tell of the 

 beginning of a land with the plow without the semblance of a ridge, and 



