Page:The Government of Iowa 1911.djvu/22

 representing 33,228,109 acres of land. The estimated value of these farms is $1,552,106,449, not including the value of buildings and farm implements. Upon these 209,163 farms the great bulk of the wealth of Iowa is produced. Corn is the chief farm product, the annual crop being estimated at 346,577,988 bushels; but wheat, oats, barley, and rye are also produced in goodly quantities, to say nothing of hay, vegetables, fruits, and berries. The total value of farm products in Iowa in the year 1905 was estimated at $203,888,540. The value of live stock (cattle, hogs, sheep, horses, and fowls) upon the farms of Iowa is even greater than the value of the products of the soil, being estimated in 1905 at $218,447,468. If now we add to these two already large sums the value of the Iowa farms and the estimated annual value of the mineral products, such as coal, clay, stone, gypsum, lead, and zinc ($14,961,293), we have a grand total of $437,297,301. But these figures, almost beyond comprehension, still give us only an imperfect idea of the wealth of Iowa. Manufactures are rapidly growing in this great agricultural and stock-raising State; and the value of the annual products of 4788 manufacturing establishments is given as $160,604,161.

The Railroads. — To carry the products of Iowa to the markets of the world, private enterprise has literally covered the State with a network of railroads. Over nine thousand miles of rails traverse the State; and every one of our ninety-nine counties is crossed by one or more railroads. Indeed, it is asserted that few farmers are more than ten miles distant from a railroad station.