Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1915-01-08
TO MAKE TESTS ON
FIFTY FARMS HERE
AGRICULTURAL EXPERT TELLS
GENERAL PLANS OF FIRST
YEARS WORK.

Some SO farms of the county, con-
Quoted by men who want to learn,
will be selected as demonstrators"
and as many more or perhaps more as
"co-operators," the former following
instructions implicitly so accurate
records of progress and results can be
kept, and the others assisting as far
as they are able, as the principal feat
ure of the first years work of Thurs
ton county's farm bureau, according
to statements made this week by o.
C. Van Houten, the countys new agri-
cultural expert, who arrived last Sat-
urday to take active charge of the
bureaus field work.
This selection will not be made
until Mr.. Van Houten has been able
to visit every section of the county
and get acquainted with the progress
sive farmers, and he expects to start
on his visits next Monday. Then, he
says, the selection will depend en-
tirely upon the attitude and the will
lingness of the individual farmer him
self to cooperate and help and study,
for this new agricultural religion isn't
going to be poured down anybody's
throat who doesn't want it. Van
Houten expects to be kept too busy
by the men who want to learn and
want to help to have any time to
waste on the skeptical or the indif-
lieves, will convince the doubling
ones of the efficacy of the doctrine.
Not "Greenhorn" Here.
Van Houten, by the way, Is not a
"greenhorn" in Thurston county, for
he spent considerable time here two
or three years ago while connected
with the dairy and food department of
the State College, when he became
acquainted with a number of farmers.
He is also an old friend of F. r.
Plumb, proprietor of the Capital City
creamery and one Of the directors of
the farm bureau, and of w. ]. Abbott
of the Farmers Cooperative cream
cry, who is vice president of the
Washington Cooperative Creamery
association, in whose selling agency
in Seattle Van Houten was employed
during 1914. So the county's expert
not only knows some of the people
here, but he is acquainted, too, in a
general way, with the farming condi-
tions in the county.
He is going to spend all of the first
few weeks he is in the county getting
acquainted with as many farmers as
he can, talking with them, finding out
their troubles, learning the soil con-
ditions and the crops raised, which
were successful and which were not,
and why, and "wising himself up"
more specifically as to conditions
here. Then he will discover those
who want to learn and cooperate in
the bureaus work, and he expects to
find 40 or so who will set aside an
acre or SO to oats or corn or potatoes
or something else - whatever they
want to-and who will plow it and
plant it and cultivate it exactly ac-
cording to the bureaus instructions,
and these farms he will visit every
week from the time the seed is
planted until the crop is harvested.
Demonstrators" and "CO-OperatOrs."
These SO are to be the demon
strators." In addition to them Van
Houten hopes to enlist the assistance
of as many more who will follow in
structions as closely as they can, but
whose farms he will not be able to
visit so frequently. They will be the
"co-operators." Then, of course, as
he moves from one farm to another
throughout the county, finding out
with what crop each has had success
and how he got it, he will spread the
gospel to all, and talk with them,
suggest to them and study their diff
ficulties out with them.
And, aside from these general
plans, Van Houten will not formulate
the bureaus policy for its first year
until he has gotten around among the
farmers and talked with them. His
headquarters will be in the new Of
fees of the Chamber of Commerce on
the second floor of the Olympia Ma
tional Bank building, for the farm
bureau is a part of this organization,
but most of the time he will be in the
field.