ITEMS OF INTEREST October 8, 1910 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Iowa farmers have been arranging for drainage improvements in their low lands at a cost of about three hundred and seven million dollars. Much of the work has been started in the various river counties in the state, and some of it has been finished. When completed Iowa will be among the richest agricultural states in the world. In five years, since 1904, the public drainage ditches in fourteen of thirty Iowa countries have actually cost $7,438,847, and the reported cost in the remaining sixteen countries will be between seven and eight million dollars. This gives a total of fifteen million dollars which have been expended on drainage ditches in thirty of the ninety-nine counties. These improvements have been made on about three million acres at an average cost of five dollars an acre. The result has been the reclaiming of swamp and flood lands which are now worth from seventy-five to two hundred dollars an acre.

At the interstate conference on rates, convened by Governor Stubbs of Kansas, he said: "This conference was called to discuss ways and means to protect the interests of the producer, consumer, shipper, and the public generally in the middle West from the advance in freight rates involved in the most important case that has ever been heard by the interstate commerce commission. The public demands nothing short of a bona fide valuation of all railroad property. Congress should immediately eract a law providing for the physical valuation of railroads by the interstate commerce commission, and this should be done before any general advance in freight rates is permitted. The general policy of railroads throughout the United States, to favor large centers and build up great cities at the expense of the rural communities, is little less than a crime against civilization."

The total gifts and bequests to both income and principal of Yale for the year ended June 30 amounted to $2,398,291,54, as compared with $1,250,932,93 for the twelve months previous. The number of students in attendance in all departments of the university was 3,381, the average cost per student to the university being $293.27 and the average receipts by the university per student $134.21. The investments of the university total $12,101,993.78, the average yield being 4.93 per cent. Of this amount $5,841,129.46 is in bonds, $1,758,796.40 in stocks, $3,750,305.69 in notes secured by mortgages, and $751,762.23 in real estate.

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