THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VII. 441 

 ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT. 



Harvey Johnson, Logan, Iowa. 



Another year has passed and we are assembled in our annual meet- 

 ing. We should be grateful that our lives have been spared during another 

 year; that we are permitted to meet at this time and place, and that 

 v. e come under such favorable conditions. 



The past year brought to us unexpected conditions and results, but 

 on the whole it was a profitable season. While there was a 

 shortage of crops, the high price of pork stimulated the demand for 

 our stock, and our trade proved much better than we anticipated 

 earlier in the season. There was also a shortage in the crop of 

 swine diseases, a shortage that is 1 always welcomed by swine breeders. At 

 no time during the past fifteen years do I recall a season in which our 

 percentage of loss by disease was as small as during the past year. 



Through the peculiarities of the past season careful, observing farm- 

 ers and stockmen have learned lessons that will prove beneficial in coming 

 years. But it is a characteristic of this day and age that we look at the 

 past only long enough to recall the lessons it has taught us, and then 

 we turn our faces toward the future and enter upon its duties with that 

 intensity of purpose that has always been a characteristic of Americanism, 

 and in no class of men can this be found more fully developed than in 

 the swine breeders of our state. 



We are now about to enter upon another season, and it is only natural 

 that we should be anxious about what it has in store for each one of us indi- 

 vidually. It was a wise precaution that closed the future to our view, and yet 

 conditions are constantly being given that indicate what is to follow. 

 Judging by present conditions the outlook for a good trade the coming 

 season is most encouraging. The pig crop throughout the state is reason- 

 ably good and in good condition; pork is high and will probably continue 

 so for some time; the prospects for a grain crop are very flattering, 

 and if a good corn crop should be raised, next fall and winter will bring 

 a greater demand for breeding stock than we have known for years. 

 We stand united in the hope that this may be the result. The swine 

 breeders of our state are a careful, conservative set of men, and are worthy 

 uf the prosperity that may come to them. 



NO NEW POLICIES TO OUTLINE. 



As president of our organization I have no new or radical policies 

 mapped out for us. I fully believe in organization and realize most fully 

 the good that is accomplished through it, but this organization can in 

 only a very small measure affect our success or failure as individuals; 

 that rests with us, and with us alone. There is one policy, however, that 

 I would advocate most strongly, not so much for the older breeders, whose 

 reputations have been established, but for the large number of young men 

 who are now entering upon this line of work and who hope to succeed, 

 and it is this: That as we work in our own individual circles, whether 

 they be large or small, that all of our business relations may show forth 

 the principles of honesty, integrity and uprightness; that these 

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