Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Ag Building [PAGE 67]

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64 which the farmer is daily associated? Why can not a stalk of Indian corn be successfully matured in a pot? Whoever answers this, answer 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 breaking1 year of 1899, they would not have purchased the corn crop the same year. Yet each year one-tifth 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 grain. Of two cows treated exactly alike as far as human endeavor is concerned, one will produce 300 pounds of butter and the other 150 pounds. He who solves this mystery will solve the mystery of the mysteries. Notwithstanding the improvement in labor saving machinery, the greatest endeavor 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 to-day the yield is thirty bushels. Who in this country will pqint the way to sixty bushels of wheat instead of twelve or one hundred bushels 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.