REPORT OF IOWA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION 387 



of women are organizing and teaching other groups, so that all the time 

 leadership is being developed, and this leadership is being used to advan- 

 tage all through the Farm Bureau movement. Many townships seemed 

 dead until some woman or group of women got behind the activities. 



And in our project work we are not forgetting to add beauty to the 

 farm home. A rose in every dooryard has become the slogan in the 

 home-beautifying contest just beginning to receive real attention in Iowa. 

 We have known all along, but are sometimes too busy to remember, that 

 beauty is a tonic to the soul. Pretty things to wear, attractive homes, 

 flowers, pictures, and the thousand other little things which we see 

 and work with every day are the most important factors leading to hap- 

 piness and contentment. After all that is the reason why we want a 

 larger income, the reason why we learn to save time by becoming more 

 efficient home makers, that we may have more time to devote to our 

 families. 



Let us strike the "only a farmer" attitude on the head and bury it. 

 Farming is the biggest business in the United States, and we have no 

 problems that we cannot solve if we go at them intelligently and in a 

 co-operative way. Let us throw away our old attitude toward the exten- 

 sion service and our agricultural college. For years we educated doctors 

 and lawyers at public expense before we began to educate farmers. 



Our attitude toward the necessity for organizing is changing. We 

 have come to accept the fact that we must be organized if we expect 

 to meet success. We cannot exist in an unorganized state, and we need 

 to throw away the last remnant of suspicion toward our neighbor, and, 

 joining hands with him continue in the triumphant march toward the 

 better and grander things of organized agriculture. 



CREDIT, FINANCE AND CO-OPERATIVE MARKETING 



BY O. E. BRADFUTE 



President American Farm Bureau Federation 



As farmers we can just as well face facts as we find them, and our 

 job as Farm Bureau members is to try as best we can to find the true 

 causes underlying such conditions, and plan methods to help solve the 

 difficulties. The underlying causes seem to be in large measure attribut- 

 able to the following conditions: 



Over-production of farm products with no adequate or profitable 

 demand to consume the surplus which must now go for export. 



No method of limiting or controlling the surplus. 



No method of orderly marketing and ditribution through the year. 



Lack of established grades and regular market for these grades. 



Transportation inadequate for the needs of agriculture and at a ruinous 

 cost. 



A financial and credit system without sufficient flexibility to meet the 

 needs of agriculture. 



Discrimination in Interest Rates 



No method should ever be adopted which will make it easy for the 

 farmer to go in debt, or to advance him money without proper and suffi- 



