The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1921-01-06
TELLS ABOUT CO.
OPERATION OF AGRI=
CULTURAL FORCES
FARM BUREAU A CONSTRUCTIVE
MOVEMENT, SAYS EXTENSION
WORK CHIEF
Created TO Promote Farming, Home,
and Rural Life, and TO Make Ag-
Ticulture More Profitable, He
Says-As a Public Insti-
tuition

THE farm bureau was created TO
promote agriculture, home, and rural
life movement, to make farming an
efficient and profitable business, to
make rural home life fuller and richer
and to improve the community life of
the country as a whole" Mr.. G. b.
Smith, Chief of the Office of Extension
Work, North and West, of the United
States Department of Agriculture, told
the conference Of ~extensin agents at
Lafayette, md, November 3.
Encouraged Farm Bureau
The United States Department OF
Agriculture, through the Office of Elk
'Onsion Work, North and West, is more
!Grgely responsible than any other ag-
"ncy for the development of farm br,
reaus in this country" declared Mr..
Smith. Their organization, in coop
Grafton with the colleges of agricul-
turc, was begun as far back as 1917,
three years before the Smith-Lever
Act was passed. They were intended
TO be then, and fundamentally are to-
day, county extension organizations Or
institutions. Up to the time of our
eItrance into the war, there were b
lumber of forms of these county ex
tension organizations, generally, but
not always called farm bureaus; but
with the giving to the United States
Department of Agriculture of large
sums of money for the completion or
The County-agent system, the depart
ment, in cooperation with the colleges
Of agriculture, as a war measure, ag=
excessively encouraged the develop,
ment of a rather uniform and definite
type of farm bureau.
The underlying reasons for bring
ing into existence a new rural organi-
cation when there are a number OF
substantial farmers organizations al
ready in existence were:
when the department and the col,
ICGes were charged by Congress with
the administration of the agricultural
extension act neither clearly knew the
exact agricultural conditions in a
~ the counties and localities of the
United States. They therefore did not
know just what form of extension
work was most needed in any particu-
lar locality. This was particularly
true in the Northern and Western
states, where agriculture is greatly
diversified. The logical thing 10 do,
therefore, as the matter appeared TO
them, was to employ a man known as
d county agent thoroughly trained in
the science Of agriculture and familiar
from experience with farm practice,
and locate him in an area not larger
than a county and let him find out
from personal examination what the
agricultural situation in that county
might be, then cooperate with the farm
ers in putting on demonstrations to
show better methods in the particular
phases of agriculture needing atten-
ton in that county. That was the first
big idea in the organization of county
Tarm bureaus, and a step nearer the
farmers than the department or the
colleges had ever before come.
Farm Bureau Develops
Very soon it was seen that if the
county agent was to learn in any COM
prehensive way the agricultural situa-
ton in the county he must counsel
with farmers in every section Of that
County-mer who had lived their lives
there and made their living from the
farm and therefore knew its peculiar
Ities intimately, and many of whom
also had acquired facts and skill not
generally applied in the community,
but which we're worthy of much wider
application. That was the second big
idea in the development of the farm
bureau.
ut was then discovered that il any
thing was going to be accomplished in
the way of improving agriculture and
rural conditions, not only must the
trained scientist and the farmers couh
sci together, but they must formulate
a fundamental and continuing policy
If work and development in the county
not only for one season but for a whole
year or period of years. That was the