TWENTIETH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART V 465 



The kind of extension service which results in larger food production, 

 larger economies and reasonable returns to farmers is of direct interest to 

 urban people. "We should not fail to let everyone understand that con- 

 sumers, more especially those in cities, have more direct interest In main- 

 taining food production tlfan the farmers themselves, because the city 

 people get only the surplus v^^hich the farmers do not need. 



Better farming means better homes and communities. Improvements 

 along these lines which have been so noticeable of late are closely 

 allied with up-to-date education, as is well knovirn to the best informed 

 farmers and agricultural editors as well as to extension workers. 



Secondly, service to farmers from persons and institutions. Here the 

 extension workers in co-operation with farm bureaus have been able to 

 accomplish a great deal. Efforts have not and will not be made to crowd 

 out legitimate business. Our workers have pointed out excessive costs 

 in handling articles needed by farmers and unnecessary margins between 

 prices received by farmers and paid by consumers, and they have indicated 

 methods for correcting these defects which often have been accepted by 

 those concerned, and greatly to the benefit of the farmer. 



For example: The assembling of orders for feeds, seeds, or binder 

 twine and placing this business thru the usual channels on a cash 

 basis has eliminated excessive costs to the advantage and satisfaction of 

 all concerned. I have heard prominent farmers say that they would 

 prefer not to engage in business which must be conducted largely at 

 places far distant from the farms, and they will not engage in such 

 business if they can receive efficient and fair treatment. Securing such 

 treatment is a service which is comparable in importance with the 

 service relating to economical production. If satisfactory treatment can- 

 not be secured from others then farmers must organize ways to get it. 



In the third place, extension work needs to serve our nation in respect 

 to some things which have become very prominent during the last few 

 weeks and months. I refer to the recently discovered efforts to over- 

 throw our government. Some one may say these efforts are not serious 

 because only four or five thousand people were involved and they could 

 not do much in a nation of one hundred million. 



If there is one person in this country who is using his intelligence and 

 energy to overthrow our government, that person is a serious problem, 

 and every good citizen should be interested in prompt and efficient 

 measures to take care of that problem. No citizens are more patriotic as 

 a group than the farmers. Foreigners who have come into thickly settled 

 portions of this country and have secured a considerable following and 

 have felt that the hour soon would arrive when they could take possession 

 of our government and substitute a government of their own which 

 knows neither law nor justice, overlooked some important items, and one 

 was that this nation has a tremendous body of self-respecting, patriotic 

 farmers who do not believe in revolutions and who will not permit their 

 homes, their property, and the safety of their families to be endangered in 

 these ways. 



It may be very significant that the county farm bureaus have developed 

 so steadily and so rapidly and now that we have strong state organlzationa 

 ao 



