464 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



average cow of the state. One of two things is true. Either we are losing 

 three-fourths of the feed that we are feeding to the cows or we are losing 

 three-fourths of the butter or butter-fat we ought to get. We should 

 have just one-fourth the number of cows we have to produce our butter 

 and save three-fourths of the feed or we should feed the number we have 

 now and get four times the amount of butter-fat. We are failing to 

 conserve our interests with regard to these matters. Lately when we 

 think of conservation we only think of the quarrel between Pinchot and 

 Ballinger. I know Pinchot and I don't know Ballinger, neither do I 

 know much about the quarrel, but I know that when we think of con- 

 servation we think about it as being on the Pacific slope. It is over 

 some river finding its way into the Pacific or some coal field in Alaska 

 or some forests in the region of the Rocky mountains or some arid desert. 

 I would not have you think less about these things. I would have you 

 learn more about them, but just as Mr. Marsh suggested, I want you to 

 understand that we have a greater proposition of conservation in Iowa 

 so far as you and I are concerned than the conservation matters we have 

 been hearing so much about. What do I mean? I went down into a 

 mine the other day and I observed some things down there. I do not 

 know whether you folks are . miners or not, but I observed that great 

 blocks of coal were being left as posts and pillars to support the roof. I 

 said to the superintendent, "What per cent of this coal do you leave per- 

 manently in the ground?" He said, "We leave about 25 per cent." I 

 think the average of coal left in -the mines of this state is well nigh 

 50 per cent of all the coal in the mines. We have lost, therefore, from 

 25 to 50 per cent of the coal of the abandoned mines of this common- 

 wealth. I said, "Is it absolutely necessary that you leave coal there." 

 There are mines which operate on the long wall plan. They go along with 

 their picks and take -the coal out a few feet at a time, throwing the 

 refuse behind them and taking the whole of the coal as they get to it. 

 But the mine I was in was operated upon the room system. They drive 

 an entry way. They make a room off that entry and mine in that way for 

 a distance, go a few feet further and open up another room and the coal 

 between the rooms must be left. I said, "Should you not mine on the 

 long wall system? Why don't you?" "Because," he said, "we can mine 

 on the room system a little cheaper." Now, just for the purpose of 

 getting a little more money at the present time they are willing to waste 

 from 25 to 50 per cent of the coal. Sometime way down the line the coal 

 supply of this country is going to give out. We are not conservationists 

 with regard to the coal interests of our commonwealth. That is another 

 thing we haven't been thinking about. Should not we people think about 

 these things in Iowa as well as on the Pacific coast? What are we going 

 to do when the coal is gone? Some stand ready to say that we will be 

 utilizing the heat from the sun by that time. Possibly that is true. I 

 am inclined to believe that theory. If you had said to me a few years 

 ago that such a thing as a phonograph were possible I would have 

 said no. If you had said that Teddy would have gone up in a flying 

 machine I would have called you crazy. So I say when some man says 



