THE EXTENSION SERVICE 175 



club, the grange, the rural church, and the community school in order 

 that they may render the great service which such community organ- 

 izations elsewhere are rendering and may continue to render. Some 

 can write. Let us help them to get together the facts being discovered 

 by our investigators, and the records of successful practises that are 

 being evolved on our farms, and encourage them to write articles and 

 news notes for the local papers and the agricultural press. Some of 

 the most effective writing being done today for the local and general 

 press is that contributed by men and women on the farms. Some 

 people are naturally good speakers. Let us use them. They are 

 needed in all these local organizations, to furnish information con- 

 cerning the scientific and economic principles which have to do with 

 successful farm work and satisfying farm life, as well as to explain 

 simple farm practises which will make farming more profitable and 

 farm life more happy. 



I believe that in the future much more of the work of the county 

 farm adviser could well be devoted to rinding these potential leaders 

 with their varying talents and helping them to organize for work. 

 The collecting of facts and the putting of them into shape for these 

 local leaders to use may well be a greater part of the farm adviser's 

 work than it has been in the past. It may be hard for some of us who 

 have been doing much of the organizing and writing and speaking to 

 turn it over to others ; but my best judgment tells me that he who suc- 

 cessfully does that will multiply the effectiveness of the extension ser- 

 vice in his county many times over. 



In my judgment the growing desire for the advise of specialists 

 will call for the employment of more of them in our State Extension 

 Service. With a clientele of from one thousand to three thousand 

 farmers, each of whom expects specialized service of some kind, the 

 farm adviser is utterly unable to render the satisfactory service which 

 was possible when he was working with three or four hundred people. 

 This great increase in the number of interested people, and their grow- 

 ing belief in the specialist, make it imperative that more men and 

 women trained along special lines be provided to go out into the 

 counties and communities to carry to the receptive people the informa- 

 tion which they desire. 



While I believe that the scientific study of soil problems, of the 

 principles of plant and animal breeding, of economic laws, etc., will 

 carry us further, years hence, than any one has yet gone, experiences 

 of the past lead me to believe that there are men on the farms all over 

 Illinois who have gone further, intuitively perhaps, along many lines 

 than the most thoro scientific study has yet taken us. 



