190 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Is it any wonder that the farmers' sons are leaving the farms and 

 seeking opportunities to test their slvill, their energy, their perse- 

 verance and their ability to surmount obstacles, in competition with the 

 young men raised in our towns and cities, and it must be said that the 

 farmer's boy, trained to early rising, hard work, with a virtuous life and 

 an earnestness and ambition that overcomes all obstacles, as a rule soon 

 distances his competitor in the race. 



I offer these suggestions to the fair management, not because I desire 

 to criticise the farmers of Iowa in their work on the farm, for having 

 striven all my adult life to elevate and ennoble the calling of a farmer, 

 by striving with all my might to do all the work on a farm in the best and 

 most scientific manner, I would fain have my fellow farmers feel the same 

 thrill of pleasure that I have felt when performing with my own hands 

 the work of the farm and creating a thing of utility and beauty that 

 people passing on the highway would stop and admire. 



But it will not only require the approval of the fair management to add 

 these valuable attractions to our next exposition, of the best that our 

 farms produce. We must have the hearty co-operation of the newspapers 

 of the state, for without them to incite an interest among the farmers in 

 this new departure, this getting out of the ruts, this effort to prove that 

 modern agriculture is one of the fine arts, would fall flat and be an utter 

 failure. 



But I depend upon the press of Iowa to champion every good cause, 

 and one that will advance the agricultural interests of our state as noth- 

 ing else will do, would undoubtedly receive the most cordial support of 

 the editors and proprietors of the newspapers of the state. 



I remember well, when as a member of the state fair directors, calling 

 late one night on Mr. R. P. Clarkson, editor of the Register, in an endeavor 

 to secure his aid in bringing the state fair to the favorable attention of 

 the people of the state. Unfortunately some things had occurred that 

 aroused Mr. Clarkson's antagonism to one of the offlcers and the Register 

 was far from friendly to the State Agricultural Society. In the editor's 

 sanctum we talked over the matter for hours and at two o'clock in the 

 morning, when I at last felt that I had accomplished my purpose, and 

 was about to take my leave, this grand man of the most sterling integrity 

 and unswerving devotion to the best interests of our state, grasped me 

 by the hand, saying, "Mr. Cownie, the columns of the Register are open 

 to you to advance the interests of the farmers of Iowa, and I will see 

 that everything you send will appear in the Register and I will co- 

 operate with you as far as I am able to build up the state fair." 



At that time my name, as also the names of the other officers of the 

 fair association, were on notes held by a Des Moines bank for about 

 twenty thousand dollars, private citizens carrying an indebtedness, and 

 responsible for its payment while stewards in charge of the property of 

 the state. 



That night, or rather morning, I went to the hotel with a lighter heart 

 than I had had for many a day, assured that with the help of the press 

 we could pay all expenses, discharge every obligation, principal and inter- 

 est, and put the state fair on a solid foundation. Knowing as I did the 

 financial difficulties that beset the officers of the society, myself included, 



