TWENTIETH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART V 445 



made this great thing possible. It has not been a one-man proposition, 

 or a two-man proposition, nor yet of a dozen or a hundred; but thousands 

 of enthusiastic, far-seeing farmers of the State of Iowa have made it 

 possible to accomplish what we set out to do in the beginning of this 

 great drive. 



Before taking up the work of the drive I want to say, briefly — and I 

 am speaking rather without close study — something of the previous prepa- 

 ration that had been made for it. 



Most of you know that the county agent work in Iowa started about 

 eight years ago, in 1912 when the first county agent was employed in 

 Clinton county. During the next six years the work grew slowly. During 

 that time Mr. Coverdale, your secretary, was the State County Agent 

 Leader. I know something of the difficulty he encountered in forward- 

 ing the work. I was in the Extension Department of the College, and 

 while not directly connected with the county agent work was frequently 

 called on for assistance in that direction and I know how hard it was 

 to get people interested. 



At the breaking out of the war there were perhaps twenty-five counties 

 organized in this state. That represented the labor of six years. Of 

 course with the war came the organization of everything in this country. 

 From the Department of Agriculture and the War Department the dictum 

 went out that it was desirable to have farm bureaus organized in every 

 county of every state in the Union. 



Iowa took that as a literal order. The workers did not stop to question 

 whether it was the best thing to do, whether it was an opportune time, 

 or anything of the sort. They went to work and did it. It was about 

 that time that I started in the work. I had something to do with the 

 movement in thirty-three counties that were organized at the outbreak of 

 the war in 1917. 



As I recall it that work started in October and by the first of February 

 following every county in the state was organized, with an average mem- 

 bership of two hundred or more, and had a county agent on the job. 

 That, you might say, was the preparation for this membership campaign; 

 laid the foundation for it — an important thing, it seems to me, because 

 while we were able to accomplish a great deal in four months, in the 

 ordinary course of events it probably would have taken ten years to have 

 completed the work here in Iowa. It would have come in time of course. 

 I have an abiding faith in the American farmer; he may be a little slow 

 in arriving at conclusions, but after a while he sees the right way and 

 follows it. 



At the time of the signing of the armistice about one year ago a good 

 many of the men who had been enthusiastic about the farm bureau in the 

 beginning thought that the need for such an organization was past, and 

 there was quite a slump in the membership. We had, perhaps, during the 

 work in the farm bureaus in this state approximately 50,000 members. On 

 the first day of July last there were 30,600 members reported to. the 

 State County Agent Leader's office. In the State Leader's office, with 

 which I am connected, it has been the policy to help the county farm 

 bureaus in every way possible, but at that we were carrying the work 



