342 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



ever it comes along, and they followed it up and made me Secretary 

 of the Bureau of Agriculture) , I had to get out and work and we 

 have been very busy. I have been compelled to do a lot of work. 

 My sympathies have been with agriculture. About two years ago 

 I was in the same employment that Mr. Hirth is, and while I was 

 not following the plow figuratively, I was, in a sense, keeping in 

 touch with agriculture. Prior to that time I had been in clerical 

 work, but had never lost my connection or sympathy with agricul- 

 ture. Consequently it seemed natural to take the secretaryship of 

 that work and go along with it. When I severed my connection with 

 the Missouri Ruralist I took a position with the Boosters' Club of 

 Sedalia and all of the work of that organization ever since it was 

 formed and I became associated with it, has been, directly in the 

 interest of the agriculture of the county, consequently if we had 

 not formed a Bureau of Agriculture and had not secured Jordan 

 and put him there, I would still be doing agricultural work in a 

 sense, but I am frank to say that the activities of our club, so far 

 as relating to agriculture, have been prompted by selfishness, and 

 if you divest the actions of the commercial organizations all over 

 the country of all the elements of selfishness, there will not be 

 enough left, figuratively speaking, to obscure the sunlight. Our 

 business men realize that, directly, so far as they are concerned, 

 the only thing in the farm and the farmers' business that interests 

 them is the surplus that the farmer produces. They do not give 

 a picayune for what he eats up and feeds his family, because that 

 cannot go into the channels of trade. So we established our Bureau 

 of Agriculture. We found that we did not produce enough to sell — 

 the business men found out that. We had to ship in stuff to feed 

 our own people. That is what actuated them to start this agita- 

 tion for a Bureau of Agriculture. Now you ought to see some of 

 the work that is going on around about Pettis county. 



I undertake to say that the towns that are going to have the 

 most successful bureaus of agriculture are the ones that give sup- 

 port to their commercial clubs, where they are gathering and co- 

 operating and working together. I will say further, that it is no 

 reflection on the farmers of such locality that the counties that are 

 going to have the hardest time to progress are those that do not 

 possess commercial clubs. The farmers have been too isolated 

 themselves for co-operation and mutual benefit. If there is no 

 commercial club in the county the farmer will lack the leadership 

 and initiative afforded by harmonious co-operation with business 

 men. 



