1 8 Years in One County 



Which Is Something of a Record When It 

 Comes to Faurn Advising ,; ;,;: 



WHEN Alden Snyder started farm 

 advising back in 1918 in Mont- 

 gomery county, it took him two 

 days to drive his Model T Ford on oc- 

 casional trips to his farm in Limestone 

 township, Kankakee county, where he 

 was born in 1883 — a distance of about 

 200 miles. 



"It was a long hard trip," Alden said. 

 "There were only about four mUes of 

 pavement all the way. In wet weather 

 there was plenty of mud. And in dry 

 weather it was dust. Now we can do 200 

 miles after lunch any afternoon and get 

 there in time for supper." 



At Urbana not long ago, state leader 



Farmer Helps Self 



(Continued from page 10) 



the Gallatin Resettlement project near 

 Harrisburg. 



The Gallatin project consists of 200 

 sixty-acre farms scattered throughout 

 Saline, Pope and White Counties. These 

 farms are being bought by the Resettle- 

 ment Administration and leased or sold 

 on easy terms to the new settlers. The 

 land will be used for general crop pro- 

 duction and cooperatives will probably 

 be organized for marketing, livestock im- 

 provement, and similar purposes. There 

 will be an agricultural supervisor on 

 hand, who will advise the new settlers 

 how to get the best out of their farms. 



Another kind of Resettlement project 

 — one of the Subsistence* Homesteads 

 group — is located in Northeastern Illi- 

 nois near the historic town of Liberty- 

 ville. This project consists of 53 ten- 

 acre homesteads which will be occupied 

 by part-time industrial workers. These 

 homesteads are scattered throughout 

 Lake County within easy reach of 

 schools, churches, and good roads. It 

 should be emphasized that these home- 

 steaders will grow crops only for their 

 own use and will not enter into competi- 

 tion with full-time farmers. On their 

 ten-acre plots of ground they will grow 

 potatoes, tomatoes, a little com and 

 wheat, and perhaps raise a few chickens. 

 The products derived from this source 

 will be used to supplement their incomes 

 from part-time work in nearby factories. 



The purpose of our work is conserva- 

 tion in the largest sense of the term. 

 It is part of a larger program of hus- 

 bandry — the joint husbandry of our hu- 

 man and material resources. We are 

 h>»lping the people conserve the land, 

 «o that the land may better serve the 

 people. ~ ■ 



AIGITST, 193S 



J. C. Spitler introduced the six Illinois 

 farm advisers who are still working in 

 the counties where they and the Farm 

 Bureau started off together. Curly- 

 haired, blue-eyed Alden Snyder with the 

 friendly smile and manner that has 

 endeared him to Montgomery county 

 farmers, was first on the list which in- 

 cludes Ben Tillman, St. Clair county, 

 Fred Blackburn, Marion county, J. H. 

 Allison, Calhoun county, Ray C. Done- 

 ghue, McDonough county, and Jonathan 

 Turner of Fayette. 



And Alden who knows a lot about hu- 

 man nature as well as soils, crops, and 

 livestock, is the dean of them all in years 

 of service in one county. 



"Alden is just one of the boys over 

 there. That's why he wears so well," 

 said a fellow adviser not long ago. He 

 listens, smiles, doesn't know too much, 

 but gets results. 



If you asked Snyder about it, he'll say. 

 "Well it's a good county. Fine people to 

 work with. Plenty of leadership and a 

 lot of fellows always ready and willing 

 to help make a go of things." 



Montgomery, Iqst you forget, had the 

 first co-operative oil company in the 

 state that the I. A. A. helped organize. 

 It is still going strong. Montgomery at 

 one time had a livestock shipping asso- 

 ciation at every shipping point, then a 

 county federation before the trucks came 

 along and put both out of business. Jim 

 Hill who sells Fords in Hillsboro organ- 

 ized 'em all, according to Snyder. In 

 Montgomery you'll find the business men, 

 in Hillsboro and Nokomis particularly, 

 as interested in supporting the Farm 

 Bureau and its activities as farmers. 

 They work together. 



"My first experience in co-operation 

 came while I was a student at the Col- 

 lege of Agriculture," Alden said. "We 

 organized the G. L. club. It was a co- 

 operative boarding club made up of about 

 .30 agricultural and home economics stu- 

 dents. I was commissary. The girls made 

 out the menus. I ordered the stuff, col- 

 lected the board money, and paid the 

 bills. We paid a 13 per cent dividend at 

 the end of the year." 



Mr. and Mrs. Snyder have a daughter. 

 Lillian, who will graduate from the Ag 

 college next year. She wants to run the 

 home farm in Kankakee county. John 

 will be n senior in the Engineering col- 

 lege at Urbana. Helen will be a junior 

 in high school, and Emil, who won the 

 8th grade pole vault, will start to high 

 .school in September. 



In Montgomery county, you will find 



ALDEN SNYDER AND CIGAR 

 "He's the dean of 'em ell." 



almost eveiy type of agriculture. Dairy- 

 ing and livestock farming are most 

 prominent. There are more than 1000 

 milk shippers in the 19 townships. The 

 fertile brown silt loam acres in the north 

 end grow bumper crops of corn, soy- 

 beans, wheat, alfalfa and sweet clover — 

 that is when it rains. The 1934 drouth, 

 as elsewhere, took a heavy toll. So did 

 the chinch bugs. But with a mixed type 

 of farming Montgomery fared better 

 than counties having more of their eggs 

 in one basket. 



It's a moot question among farm ad- 

 visers and Farm Bureau members, this 

 changing of jobs and men occasionally. 

 But down in Montgomery the folks are 

 sold on Alden Snyder. They believe that 

 when you find a good man it's a good 

 idea to keep him and help him succeed 

 in putting the job over. 



Present prospects are for a light Illi- 

 nois crop of apples this year of not more 

 than one-fourth to one-third of a normal 

 harvest for the state as a whole and in- 

 cluding all varieties. Illinois peach crop 

 this year is restricted to a few counties 

 in the extreme southern end of the state, 

 and even in that area there will be only 

 about 10 percent of a full crop. Due t« 

 severe frosts at blossoming time, the 

 pear crop will also be light, estimated 

 at 30 percent of the 5-year period. 



The Rochdale co-operative store which 



had only 28 members in 1844 eventually 

 grew to be the biggest single business in 

 Great Britain. 



A businesii office in every farm home 



is one of the recommendations made at 

 a meeting of the Rock Island county 

 program building committee. 



Farmers spend about six percent of 



their time away from the farm in <uch 

 activities as trading and visiting, says 

 the State College of Agriculture. 



U 



