PROCEEDINGS STATE AGRICULTURAL CONVENTION 167 



Then in the second place one of the big features of this work is the 

 demonstration phase of it. We don't ask them simply to get that informa- 

 tion for themselves and keep it, but we impress upon them the importance 

 and the opportunity that they have for spreading that information to 

 others. It may be that it is used only in the home work or on a particular 

 farm, but more likely it will be outside of that, and in that community 

 is ever teaching some of these better practices. 



I related this incident yesterday to show you what the effect of the 

 boys' and girls' work has sometimes in a community in that regard: A 

 boy up in a northwest Iowa county wrote in last summer and complained 

 of the fact that he was being bothered by the people in the community — 

 that is the way he put it — by the people in his community all coming and 

 wanting to see his calf. He had an especially good type of calf he was 

 feeding. The people began to hear about it in that community and they 

 would come and ask him to lead it out of the barn, and he said it got 

 to the point on Sundays so he would just simply lead the calf out under a 

 tree and tie it there so he would not have to be leading it in and out of 

 the barn all the time. 



That is a good demonstration of the fact that the people in that com- 

 munity were looking to that boy and his calf for something better than 

 probably they had upon their own farms. They believed that calf was 

 an especially good type and they were coming there to see what that 

 animal looked like and undoubtedly they carried away information that 

 they are going to use later on. Further than that, I venture to say 

 that hardly a person came there to look at that boy's calf but asked one 

 further question, that is, they asked the boy "What are you feeding that 

 calf?" And if that boy was following out, as he undoubtedly was, some 

 of the best feeding instructions given anywhere, he would tell them of 

 the ration, which was probably better than anything they had ever heard 

 of or were using on their own farms. There again they were carrying 

 away this idea. 



We use this illustration sometimes in connection with girls' work more 

 particularly: You know a few years ago throughout the farming com- 

 munities of the north and also of the south, what is known as cold-pack 

 canning was almost an unknown thing. The canning factories used it 

 very commonly, but the homes never used it, didn't know certain products 

 could be canned by this process. Then in 1915 the girls' club began 

 demonstrations all over the country, in this state and in other states, 

 and they followed that up with public demonstrations at fairs and all 

 kinds of meetings, until as you probably know today the cold-pack can- 

 ning method is very commonly used; in fact, a survey recently made by 

 the department of agriculture revealed this, that the cold-pack canning 

 method is now used in more homes in the United States than do home 

 bread baking. That may be a surprising statement, but we get the figures 

 from all over the country and it shows the results of the work. It shows 

 that through this work you can put into effect in any county, any com- 

 munity any good agricultural practice in the way of live stock raising, 

 corn raising, poultry raising, or something for the home. It is entirely 

 possible to do that with the boys and girls, to teach them these things, and 



