Proceedings of Seventeenth Normal Institute 155 



THE PLACE OF THE FARM BUREAU IN AGRICULTURAL EXTENSICN 



WORK 



C. B. Smith 



the farm bureau represents an idea in agricultural 



extension 



The idea is not yet perfected but it is fast taking shape. The 

 outlines of its boundaries are being delimited and the thing that 

 seemed visionary in the North three years ago is fast becoming 

 a reality. I cannot show the change that is taking place more 

 forcibly perhaps than by quoting from a speech made three years 

 ago by the dean of one of our great agricultural colleges at an 

 assembly of college men and farmers in the Middle West. Speak- 

 ing of the farm bureau movement he said : "So attractive is this 

 new scheme that it is sweeping men off their feet. Just at 

 present we are engaged in the absurd attempt to place one of 

 these demonstrators in every county of the United States. Fed- 

 eral and state aid and private patronage are all invoked to bring 

 this about at once, regardless of the fact that men who can do 

 this work as it ought to be done are unavailable. I regard this 

 latest step as the most dangerous of all that have been taken in 

 agricultural progress since the world began." 



Since this address was made the number of farm bureaus in 

 the North and West has increased from half a dozen to 380. 

 Every agricultural college in the United States has accepted the 

 idea ; and the possibility of placing an agent in every county of 

 the United States has been made practically certain by federal 

 and state laws already enacted. I would not go so far at this 

 time as to say that the hopes of those who initiated and fostered 

 the work have been fully met. They have not. Probably not 

 more than 50 per cent of the farm bureaus established in the 

 North have as yet made good in any full sense of that phrase; 

 but that fact is not discouraging any one. The work is yet new, 

 and it is interesting to note that up to date not 5 pea* cent of 

 the counties starting work in the North have given it up. 



The idea of the farm bureau as understood by the leaders in 

 agriculture is now fully accepted as right, and that idea is based 



