436 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



cows than they have in the Guernsey Islands, more Jerseys than in the 

 Jersey Islands and more Holsteins than in Holland. Then when we have 

 all of these we will have room for ten times as many. We hear a good 

 deal said about the rural depopulation and about the people who have 

 been leaving our state, but it must also be said to the credit of the people 

 who are on the farms of Iowa that they are producing more today than 

 ever before, and they are learning to do it because of the improved meth- 

 ods which they are applying to agriculture, especially in this line. We 

 have prided ourselves too long in the fact that America has been, as 

 we term it, the granary of the world. Let us rather strive to become 

 the food producing section of the world, and let us seek to produce 

 products that will take less from our soil and that will retain the most 

 in the way of fertility and future usefulness. These are the lines along 

 which we must develop the agriculture of Iowa in the years to come. We 

 are confronted today with new conditions. We are confronted with con- 

 ditions that require skill and intelligence. A good many have been 

 frightened out by high priced land. They have imagined that when land 

 reached $100 or $150 or $200 per acre that it was too valuable to grow grass 

 and raise live stock. I want to say there is no greater mistake than 

 that. As our lands advance we cannot afford to abondon our live stock 

 and our dairy cows. We can not afford to do anything else than to engage 

 in an occupation that will leave the soil enriched and develop the skill 

 of our people. 



There is no occasion for being alarmed at high-priced land in Iowa. 

 A good many who have sold their land and gone to regions where they 

 could buy cheaper farms — who have sold land worth $100 and bought 

 more worth $10 and sometimes less, have left land that has advanced 

 25 to 50 per cent while that they bought advanced 10 per cent. I be- 

 lieve there is no better investment in Iowa than the good rich, productive 

 soil we have in this state. I believe there is no way in which a man 

 can invest his surplus earnings better than the improvement of our 

 farms, better than the building of homes. The farm as a home has not 

 yet come to its full appreciation in America, and the thing we need 

 today as a people is to develop our resources and to develop the love of 

 the soil and the love of the home. 



It is rather discouraging when we see a farmer who has spent the 

 better part of his life on a farm leaving the old place that has given him 

 a good living and a good profit and moving to town or to some small 

 village, perhaps to spend the remaining days of his life. If he would 

 spend the money he puts into his town home in the improvement of that 

 farm he would have a more comfortable home and in all cases he would 

 extend the days of his life. It is wrong for a man who has lived an active 

 life on a farm to retire and absolutely do nothing. It is the hardest thing 

 he can do. When a man has nothing to do he shortens the days of his 

 life. I believe we are coming to a time, in fact we are at that period 

 now, when we are going to look upon the farm as a permanent home for 

 our children who follow us. 



