76 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



The Farm Bureaus have led farmers into greater progress in the 

 last ten years than in the thirty years preceding. While the cost has 

 reached a considerable total, it is small as apportioned to each member 

 and as measured in results. Every Farm Bureau member gets full re- 

 turns on his investment, even if he makes no effort to do so. And yet 

 it is our duty to make the work both economical and efficient to the 

 greatest degree. Farm Bureau directors should not be mere enthu- 

 siasts ; they should be farmers who succeed in the financial management 

 of their own farms, who appreciate values and who can fairly calcu- 

 late returns on an investment. We are now passing through the most 

 expensive period of Farm Bureau work, just at the time when farm 

 finances are at low ebb. In pioneering these marketing efforts, for 

 example, we cannot accurately forecast the returns on all the outlay 

 in cash and effort. Some expenditures will eventually prove to have 

 been unproductive, and this adds to the final cost. It is much more 

 expensive to invent and try out new plans than to execute old and es- 

 tablished systems ; but the initial steps must somehow be taken or no 

 revision of agricultural methods will be effected. As fast as these new 

 systems are developed, it will be possible to lop off introductory fea- 

 tures, and thereby save much expense. Delegating a large measure 

 of responsibility to the local marketing units is calculated to effect 

 economy as well as to stimulate loyalty, and this principle again co- 

 incides with the prominence we attach to the local units in the Farm 

 Bureau. Overhead control should not be sufficient to dominate, but 

 merely to coordinate systematically the work of local marketing 

 agencies. So far as we have gone in these projects, these principles 

 have been followed. Even the centralization provided in the U. S. 

 Grain Growers, Inc., extends only to the point of concentrating sales 

 into sufficient volume ; and full local representation is provided in the 

 management. 



PUBLICITY OF SUBJECT MATTER AND OF AIMS 



Publicity is a necessary feature of Farm Bureau work. Period- 

 ical communications from the county office are needed by individual 

 members to keep them fully informed concerning the business and ed- 

 ucational features of the work, not only within the county but in the 

 state and nation at large. They should have in concrete form such 

 information as can be useful in improving their individual businesses 

 and the cooperative enterprises in which they are engaged. This can 

 be shaped in an attractive form to fit local conditions and to anticipate 

 the inquiries which would naturally arise from time to time. The 



