260 Missouri Agriculhiral Report. 



and pigs and cattle have received this attention of the State for so 

 long a time before as much was given to the consideration of the 

 farm homes and that best of all crops, the boys and girls, in this 

 "advancement of the agricultural interests of the State." For four 

 years, however, or since 1909, the Board has sent to those institutes 

 from which the demand came, a woman trained in Home Economics 

 to talk to the farmers' wives and daughters along various lines of 

 Domestic Science. 



We realize that the old type of farmers' institutes has been a 

 very potent factor in advancing the agricultural interests of the 

 State and that these institutes have caused many farmers to take 

 up scientific methods of farming. It is still the most efficient means 

 of service in many localities. In other communities, however, it 

 seems that the best results are to be obtained by forming definite 

 organizations which will carry on work during the whole year in- 

 stead of having only one meeting of one, two, or three days out of 

 the three hundred and sixty-five. 



This is true for both the men's and women's work. S'o we find 

 the State Board of Agriculture urging and helping in the organiza- 

 tion of local home makers' clubs and the girls' clubs that may be 

 cooking, sewing, poultry or bee raising, tomato growing, bread 

 making, etc. 



We see the need of these clubs because we are beginning to 

 realize that the farm home is remaining stationary, or nearly so, and 

 is dropping far behind the advances made on the farm itself. We 

 realize also that special training is needed for developing efficiency 

 in women's work just as in the case of men's work, and that so far 

 the special training of women has in this State been less generously 

 provided for than has that of men. It is through such organiza- 

 tions as the local home makers' clubs that the State Board is 

 endeavoring to give this special training for efficiency to those 

 women of the State who cannot come to the University, to any one 

 of our State Normals, or even to our State Home Makers' Confer- 

 ence which is held each year during Farmers' Week at Columbia. 



These home makers' clubs should hold regular monthly or semi- 

 monthly meetings and the year's program can be made up from an 

 infinite number of subjects so vital to the home maker, particularly 

 to the home maker in the country. It might include such things 

 as foods and nutrition, well-balanced meals, proper food for infants 

 and growing children, for the adult and for the aged, diet in disease ; 

 sanitation, water supply, ventilation, transmission of disease; home 

 decoration, household conveniences, household management; cloth- 



