NINETEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 411 



It may seem a little commonplace to talk about extension work at 

 this time, when you have been listening to these talks about economic 

 problems which confront you. But I want to second the statement made 

 by Mr. Howard, the president of the Federation of Farm Bureaus, when 

 he said that the boys and girls in the country must have as good educa- 

 tional advantages as the boys and girls in town, or else the country 

 people will in all probability have less capacity eventually than those in 

 the town. So this educational problem is all-important after all in solv- 

 ing economic problems, because the boys of today will be the leaders of 

 tomorrow, and they are the ones who have to solve the problems. 



Extension work, in a way, began at the Iowa State College thirteen 

 years ago, or, to be more exact, the legislature thirteen years ago made 

 an appropriation, and the work began the following summer. From time 

 to time, increased appropriations have been granted for this work, and 

 additional work has been taken up by the department, beginning with a 

 few specialists. There are now upon the extension force specialists rep- 

 resenting every department. In addition to that we have the boys' and 

 girls' work and home demonstration work. The United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture has furnished additional funds for the prosecution of 

 this work, covering the last six years. About that time the county agent 

 system began, and the first county to organize was Clinton county. This 

 work was so well established, that when the war broke out the federal 

 government turned to the extension organization in order to carry thru 

 the war food program of the federal government. The extension de- 

 partment of our state immediately took up this work and worked out the 

 plans, and organized the farm labor bureaus and also extended the county 

 agent system. 



By the next February^ every county in the state had a farm bureau 

 organization and one county had two. This organization was so com- 

 plete last February that it was possible for the farm bureau associations 

 to select one co-operator for each four miles of land thruout the state. 

 These men were appointed by Governor Harding, and they immediately 

 unearthed about two million bushels of seed corn, and also made a avail- 

 able stores of seeds held in farmers' hands. This information was all 

 turned over to the county agents, and thru their efforts I feel justified in 

 saying the seed corn situation was met, and some of you had much to do 

 in solving that problem in your different localities. The farm agents, 

 thru the farm bureaus, last year tested over 300,000 bushels of corn for 

 seed purposes. The main object was to get everybody to test their corn, 

 and it is safe to assume many times as much corn was tested by individual 

 farmers as by the association. 



The war work of the extension department during the past two years 

 has been effectively supported by the state administration and by the 

 state and county councils of defense, by the War Emergency Food Com- 

 mittee, by the Food Administration, and by other organizations every- 

 where. 



I believe we can safely say that the farmers of this country are the 

 only great working organization which greatly increased the production 

 thru the period of the war with a decreased labor supply. Naturally, the 



