ELEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK- PART VIII 461 



vegetable nutrition it has taken from the soil. Prof. Hopkins gives the 

 figures along these lines, that every bushel of corn takes 13^0, a bushel 

 of wheat 18c, rye 14c, a ton of hay $6, and through the list he gives you 

 figures at which rate you rob the soil when you do the work as we have 

 done it too long in Iowa. 



I want to call your attention to another thing. I happened to be riding 

 on a train one time and met Henry Ward Beecher. When he learned 

 my business and work he said: "I have always considered the cow the 

 great means of advancement of modern civilization." He said he was 

 in the Dakotas and saw vast fields of deserted crops. He said people 

 had gone in there, planted wheat and oats, become discouraged and moved 

 on leaving nothing but wasted efforts. He said if a man had a single 

 cow he would have to be there in the morning and at night, and he 

 wouldn't go very fat- away and he would not stay alone. He would build 

 a Home, and it is around the hearthstone that civilization is advanced. 



I have had the privilege of visiting every country that has developed 

 a bred of dairy cows, and I want to say that no country has ever devel- 

 oped a great breed of dairy cattle whose people were not home builders 

 ; — home-loving people. I had the privilege three years ago of visiting 

 several of- the little islands in the English Channel. I was looking for 

 a few heifers for my farm. I noticed a few likely yearlings and asked 

 the price. I was told there was no price on them. Then I asked him if 

 there was a price what would it be. I found that money could not buy 

 them. In the house I saw on the wall a painting of four beautiful cows. 

 I was told that in 1858 this man's grandfather showed these four cows 

 in England and won with them. The second cow was a champion cow 

 and that heifer was a descendant from that cow. We walked out of the 

 house, and I noticed there over the door a sign upon which was inscribed 

 the figures 1640. I said to the man: "This is a very old house." "Yes, 

 it is," he replied. "Is that the year it was built," I asked him. "Oh, no, 

 that is the year we moved Id" 7 said to myself, "here are a people with 

 beautiful homes, who depend on the dairy cow as a means of sustaining 

 the home, and in my country we don't save the land; we don't build 

 homes on farms. That night I rolled and tossed on my bed and wondered 

 if Iowa would ever have these beautiful homes; if Iowa would ever have 

 any places that were intended to be called home not only for the man 

 who lived there at the time but for the man's son and his son's son. 



Friends, if we are to have homes of this kind and land to support them, 

 I want to say to you that we want to look to the true foundation of it 

 all — the dairy cow. , 



There is another thing. We all talk about commerce and industry, 

 etc., but the real mission is the development of man. In connection with 

 this I want to recall a story. One day the great McKinley was riding 

 through Iowa. He had been asked to speak early in the morning. His 

 car was side-tracked, and as he was dressing he looked out and saw a 

 boy running on the frosty grass barefooted. He hurried to where the 

 cows were, and, arousing them, he stood where they had lain and warmed 

 his feet. McKinley told this story to his cabinet, and every member of 



