128 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



MISSOURI FARM MANAGEMENT DEMONSTRATION MEETING. 



(D. H. Doane, in charg-e of Farm Management in Missouri.) 



I have been asked to write about the Demonstra- 

 tion meeting we held last year, 1910, on our No. 4 

 farm. 



In looking over the notes concerning our re- 

 sults and the reports about the meeting, I find that 

 W. L. Nelson, Assistant Secretary of the State Board 

 j'^^mm^\ of Agriculture, wiio was one of the speakers at the 



^^4^Wx Ijl^ meeting and a veiy interested and attentive listener 

 ^^^^'4 ^ ^^H during the whole day, has given the best report on 



^ — ■^— ' the meeting that was written. Consequently, I am 



R. s. Harriman. taking the liberty of using his ideas, with a few ex- 

 ceptions, and the adding of some results obtained since the meeting, as 

 he expressed them for an article in the Breeders' Gazette of October 5, 

 1910. 



"The dream of a farmers' institute in the fields has finally been ful- 

 filled. For several years we have had ' the college on wheels ; ' now we have 

 the farmers' institute on legs. While the methods are close akin, the 

 latter has a decided advantage, representing not only a movement toward 

 the farm but actually on the farm and in the fields. 



"It was in Cooper county, Missouri, that the demonstration farm 

 meeting took place on Thursday, September 15. It had been adver- 

 tised as a demonstration farm meeting, inasmuch as the place was Mis- 

 souri United States Demonstration Farm No. 4, owned and operated by 

 R. S. Harriman, but it was frequently referred to as a ' Show Me ' farm- 

 ers ' picnic and institute. Putting it thus in popular parlance seemed 

 most appropriate, as the 'Show Me' State furnished both the location 

 and the leaders for the first-of-the-kind institute on legs. 



' ' Some seven or eight years ago a young man from Lawrence county, 

 Missouri, proposed to those in authority in the Department of Agricul- 

 ture to organize an office having for its object the study and adminis- 

 tration of agriculture from the standpoint of the farmer. By this was 

 meant so to train men that they might see the farm as a unit, rather 

 than any one part of it. The horticulturist sees the apple tree, the 

 dairyman the milch cow, and the agronomist the corn crop or soil, but 

 all these the general farmer must see. The one who had this vision 

 further said that, as the farmer has thousands of details to correlate and 

 shape into farm plans, there was need of a man trained in this kind of 

 work. From this came the Office of Farm Management, and at its head 



