ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 261 



sandy soils are not? Who can answer this fundamental fact with which 

 the farmer is daily associated? Why can not a stalk of Indian corn be 

 successfully matured in a pot? Whoever answers this, answers some 

 of the fundamental but still unknown questions concerning plant growth. 

 One acre in every three that is plowed in the United States is planted to 

 Indian corn. If all the pig iron mined in the United States had been 

 made into steel rails in the record breaking year of 1899, they would 

 not have purchased the corn crop the same year. Yet each year one- 

 fifth of this great crop is lost in the curing. He who gives the reasons and 

 applies the remedy, will acquire fame and the gratitude of his fellowmen. 

 Neither may the value be placed upon the results which may come from 

 him who changes the chemical composition of this beneficent gram. Of 

 two cows treated exactly alike as far as human endeavor is concerned, 

 one will produce 30 pounds of butter and the other 150 pounds. He who 

 solves this mystery will solve the mystery of the mysteries. Notwith- 

 standing the improvement in labor saving machinery, the greatest en- 

 deavor of the human race is still to produce food. If a penny saved is a 

 penny earned, what shall we say of him who makes the potential energy 

 of this vast force more available. Three centuries ago the yield of wheat 

 in England is said to have been not more than six bushels per acre. The 

 same soil is rained upon by the same rains and sunned by the same sun, 

 yet today the yield is thirty bushels. Who in this country will point 

 the way to sixty bushels of wheat instead of tv/elve or one hundred 

 l)ushels of corn instead of twenty -five? 



The problems are unlimited but the greatest of them are yet beyond 

 the vision of man. To him who has prepared himself to solve these life 

 problems, will come the opportunities of the future. The world waits 

 for him. Its rewards will not be meagre. 



