The genie who built Aladdin's palace in a night was the champion hustler of the fairy tale countries. But he was not so tremendously superior to the farm labourer who takes a can of gasolene and cuts fifty cords of wood in a day, or to the man who milks a herd of sixty cows in two hours, by machinery. To-day farming is not a drudgery. Rather it is a race--an exciting rivalry between the different States. For years Illinois and Iowa have run neck and neck in the raising of corn and oats. Minnesota carries the blue ribbon for wheat, with Kansas breathless in second place. California has shot to the front in the barley race. Texas and Louisiana are tied in the production of rice. Kentucky is the tobacco champion; and New York holds the record for hay and potatoes. To see the New Farmer at his best, I went to Iowa. No other State has invested so much money--sixty millions--in labour-saving machinery, so it can fairly claim to be the zenith of the farming world. Here there are twenty thousand women and three hundred thousand men who have made farming a profession. They are producing wealth at the rate of five hundred millions a year, nearly sixteen hundred dollars apiece. How? By throwing the burden of drudgery upon machines. Iowa is not so old; she will be sixty-two, this year. She is not so large; little England is larger. Yet, with her hog-money she could pay the salaries of all the monarchs of Europe; and with one year's corn crop she could buy out the "Harvester Trust," or build three New York Subways. When the Indians sold Iowa to Uncle Sam they got about eight cents an acre. To give the price exactly, to a cent, it was $2,877,547.87. When this money was paid, there were statesmen who protested that it was too much. Yet this amount was less than the Iowans got for last year's colts; it was less than one quarter of the value of the eggs in last years nests. Every three months, the Iowa hen pays for Iowa. Through the courtesy of Mr. Harlan, of the Des Moines Historical Society, I obtained the addresses of nine old settlers, who went into Iowa with ox-carts, before 1850, and who are still living. I found that every one of them had remained on the land and was prosperous. The poorest owned $7,000, the richest $96,000; and their average wealth was $36,000. These fortunes are not made, as in France, by sacrificial economies. The Iowan is noted as a high liver and a good spender. Here, for instance, is the menu of a chance supper I enjoyed at the home of an Iowa farmer, nine miles from Des Moines: Mashed potatoes, poached eggs, hot biscuits, white bread, fresh butter, honey, jelly, peaches and cream, gooseberry pie, and good coffee--all served on china, with fine linen tablecloth and napkins. The man of the house was the son of a rack-rented Irish immigrant, who had been reared "on potatoes and salt, mostly."