196 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



EVENING SESSION. 



ONE OF THE ESSENTIALS. 



J. W. Johnson, Albia, Ioica. 



The first I knew of the circumstances which led up to my present 

 situation was that I was on the program for a paper and the above sub- 

 ject assigned me. I felt toward the committee as Pat Murphy did th3 

 Cruickshank bull. He had just come over — that is Pat, the bull had been 

 imported the year before — and was making across the pasture. Whether 

 it was his red hair or verdant hue that angered his majesty, the bull 

 made after him. Pat made wild strides for salvation and was ready for 

 the final leap over the fence when the polished horns of the thoroughbred 

 caught him amidships and tossed him over. He lit in the brush and dust 

 bit the ground, scraped his shins and got up saying something not re- 

 corded and as he smoothed down the ruffled places he looked back over 

 the fence at the bull, who was bowing and pawing and making greaf 

 ado. "You old divil," said Pat, "you need make no apologies to me, ye 

 did it a purpose." 



But on second thought we have taken it more kindly and forgiven 

 them. There is need of great care at times like this for, "we have known 

 I stand in the presence of men who have done much for the material 

 too much that was not so," and we are always asserting it for the truth. 

 prosperity of ihe great commonwealth of Iowa, indeed who rank with the 

 most eminent in the great fine stock industry of the whole country. 

 Whether it be in the cabinet or congress or the public service, or national 

 politics or the fat stock snow, or wherever it be, Iowa's thoroughbreds 

 are all right and will continue to be, for our whole people are alive and 

 thinking, wide-awake and working along all lines. 



There are many essentials on the farm. The first to suggest itself is 

 the farmer's wife. Mr. Farmer is quite apt to believe that he is "it." but 

 the gentle, patient, bright woman that stands by him in life's picture is 

 just as essential as he. My mother was a farmer's wife and my wife a 

 farmer's daughter, so that it is not theory, but sweet experience I am 

 talking. The lady of the white house is all right in her place, "the new 

 woman" has added many charms to modern life, but the farmer's wife 

 is more essential to your prosperity and business than any element or 

 factor mentionable. A farm without a home would be a drear and a 

 desert place. There mould be mould, dust and decay, it would be sun- 

 shine without vitality, leisure without pleasure, life without refinement, 

 without the farmers' wives. Forget her not. In the struggle and toil of 

 the day, in the rush for wealth, smile upon and love and cherish the noble 

 woman who is wife and mother in your farm home. Says Tennyson: 

 "Happy he with such a mother; faith in womankind beats with his blood, 

 and trust in all things high comes easy to him." It was woman who was 

 last at the cross and first at the tomb, and so it is with the true woman 

 in every trail. 



