514 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



live on the farms, of the men whose labor feeds and clothes the towns 

 and cities. 



BENEFITS RESULTING FROM CO-OPERATIOX. 



Farmers must learn the vital need of co-operation with one another. 

 Next to this comes co-operation with the government, and the government 

 can best give its aid through associations of farmers rather than through 

 the individual farmer; for there is no greater agricultural problem than 

 that of delivering to the farmer the large body of agricultural knowledge 

 which has been accumulated by the national and state governments and 

 by the agricultural colleges and schools. Nowhere has the government 

 worked to better advantage than in the south, where the work done by the 

 department of agriculture in connection with the cotton growers of the 

 southwestern states has been phenomenal in its value. The farmers in 

 the region affected by the boll weevil, in the course of the efforts to fight 

 it, have succeeded in developing a most scientific husbandry, so that in 

 many places the boll weevil became a blessing in disguise. Not only did 

 the industry of farming become of very much greater economic value 

 in its direct results, but it became immensely more interesting to thou- 

 sands of families. The meetings at which the new subjects of interest 

 were discussed grew to have a distinct social value, while with the farmers 

 were joined The merchants and bankers of the neighborhood. It is 

 needless to say that every such successful effort to organize the farmer 

 gives a great stimulus to the admirable educational work which is being 

 done in the southern states, as elsewhere, to prepare young people for 

 an agricultural life. It is greatly to be wished that the communities 

 whence these students are drawn and to which they either return or 

 should return could be cooperatively organized; that is, that associations 

 of farmers could be organized, primarily for business purposes,, but also 

 with social ends in view. This would mean that the returned students 

 from the institutions of technical learning would find their environment 

 prepared to profit to the utmost by the improvements in technical methods 

 which they had learned. 



The people of our farming regions must be able to combine among 

 themselves, as the most efficient means of protecting their industry 

 from the highly organized interests which now surround them on every 

 side. A vast field is open for work by co-operative associations of farm- 

 ers in dealing with the relation of the farm to transportation and to the 

 distribution and manufacture of raw materials. It is only through such 

 combination that American farmers can develop to the full their eco- 

 nomic and social power. Combination of this kind has, in Denmark, 

 for instance, resulted in bringing the people back to the land, and has 

 enabled the Danish peasant to compete in extraordinary fashion, not 

 only at home, but in foreign countries, with all rivals. 



KIND OF EDUCATION NEEDED. 



Agricultural colleges and farmers' institutes have done much in 

 instruction and inspiration; they have stood for the nobility of labor 

 and the necessity of keeping the muscles and the brain in training for 

 industry. They have developed technical departments of high practical 



