174 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



that the farm management studies showed how they were doing their 

 work to increase their profits; and the Extension Service, farm 

 papers and farmers' institute workers carried the story of their suc- 

 cess to thousands of other farmers, many of whom profited by the 

 example. About twenty years ago, out in Missouri, an unknown 

 farmer split a log in two, made a sled of it and dragged it sideways 

 up and down the road along his farm. His success in maintaining 

 a serviceable road was noticed, and the King split-log drag became 

 known throughout the country. Out of its use has been developed the 

 patrol maintenance of dirt and gravel roads, which bids fair to 

 revolutionize road-building methods in the corn belt. 



I hope that reference to work in which I have had a part will be 

 pardoned. I will use it here because it illustrates this point so well. 

 In the Woodford county corn test, in which seed corn submitted by 

 one hundred and twenty men was planted in comparative field trials 

 for three consecutive years, those men who had followed most 

 closely the recent teachings of the utility seed corn specialists gradu- 

 ally increased their corn yields until their seed was among the twenty 

 per cent most productive. This shows the value of following the 

 advice of specialists. It is also true, however, that the seed entered in 

 the test by a few men who had been selecting seed for many years along 

 lines developed by themselves, their fathers, and their grandfathers, 

 far outclassed in yielding power that brought in by those other men. 

 Two brothers about sixty years of age, who had learned forty years 

 ago from their father how to select seed, and who had never attended 

 a college, an institute, or a short course, had some of the highest 

 yielding corn. The son of one of these men had one of the best lots 

 of seed in the test. This test shows, therefore, that while we may 

 well listen to the specialist, we may well watch, too, for those 

 profitable practises which are often to be found out on the farms of 

 men who have been doing things, intuitively perhaps, in a way that is 

 superior to the plans suggested by the results of any scientific study 

 which has yet been made. 



THE FUTURE OF THE EXTENSION SERVICE 



If these conditions, which have been pointed out as really to 

 exist are facts, then they have a very definite bearing on the future ex- 

 tension policy of our state. I believe that one of the most valuable 

 functions of the Extension Service in the future will be to develop 

 local leaders and give them work to do. Let us encourage those who 

 have organizing ability, and help them to organize the community 



