Who's Who Among 



^'"'Mm'^-^ The Farm 



C\y|« HEN you call the roll of 

 ^>.y 1/ farm advisers who lead in 



ff J years of service in one coun- 

 ty, you can't overlook Charles H. Kelt- 

 ner of Winnebago county. He's right 

 up there at the head of the column, go- 

 ing strong after 16 years in one spot. 



Mr. Keltner was annointed with the 

 Farm Bureau spirit way back when 

 Farm Bureaus were known as soil and 

 crop improvement associations. In 

 fact, it was Big Bill Eckhardt of De- 

 Kalb who suggested to Prof. Charles 

 H. Keltner of Mt. Morris College and 

 later the DeKalb Teachers' College, 

 that he might like being a county agri- 

 cultural adviser. Being a professor of 

 agriculture in those days was not what 

 it was cracked up to be, according to 

 Keltner. And so after some delibera- 

 tion he took a trip down to Urbana to 

 talk it over with Dr. Cyril G. Hopkins, 

 then chairman of the committee on hir- 

 ing farm advisers. 



Dri Hopkins was just about to put 

 his official O. K. on the new candidate 

 when he happened to think of another 

 question — "How much actual farm- 

 ing have you done since you left col- 

 lege.'" The answer was, "None." So 

 to become eligible, Keltner found him- 

 self operating the old homestead farm 

 up around Warren in JoDaviess coun- 

 ty. There he worked three years prov- 

 ing to himself that the things he 

 learned at Urbana and taught at Mt. 

 Morris and DeKalb would work when 

 backed up with a little gray matter and 

 plenty of elbow grease. 



"So I came off the farm to Winne- 

 bago county," said Keltner. "It helped 

 wonderfully. It gave me self-confi- 

 dence, too. We found practically all 

 the soils of Winnebago acid. Grinding 

 up our local deposits of limestone was 

 one of the first things we promoted 

 after I arrived in September, 1920. To- 

 day you will find alfalfa growing all 

 over Winnebago county. 



"Hog cholera control is another im- 

 portant project here. Vaccinating pigs 

 is well established now as 2 sound 

 practice on well-managed Winnebago 

 county farms. The Winnebago County 

 Farm Bureau put out a lot of serum 

 in the past week," he said. 



Winnebago county has 515 square 

 miles of mostly good land. About 110 

 of it is brown silt loam, 98 brown 



CHAS. H. KELTNER 

 "No drinker nor smoker, he" 



sandy loam, 83 yellow grey silt loam, 

 while the remaining 224 acres consist 

 of yellow silt loam, yellow grey sandy 

 loam, mixed loam, etc. 



There are 826 Farm Bureau members 

 in Winnebago's 16 townships. Harold 

 Jepson, organization director, is work- 

 ing hard to increase this number. His 

 September record was 53 new paid-up 

 members. 



The Grange is well organized in 

 Winnebago, and the Grangers work 

 hand in hand with the Farm Bureau. 

 In fact, the membership is synonymous 

 in many localities, and most, if not 

 all, the directors of the Fa-rm Bureau, 

 are prominent in the Grange. The 

 Farm Bureau co-operates with the 

 Grange in putting on the annual Trask 

 Bridge Grange Picnic — one of the 

 biggest gatherings of farmers held each 

 year. 



Mr. Keltner was born in 1879, east 

 of Mt. Carroll in Carroll county, Illi- 

 nois. His father, now 83 and retired, 

 was a minister in the Church of the 

 Brethren. Mr. and Mrs. Keltner have 

 six children and two grandchildren. 

 A daughter is married end resides in 

 Rockford, Ralph, also married, teaches 

 in the Rockford High School, and 

 four boys are still at home. 



Like all successful farm advkers, Mr. 



Keltner is a hard worker. A 12-hour 

 work day is about his average. You 

 can stand that when you have a strong 

 constitution and Keltner is big and ro- 

 bust. He hasn't had a day off from sick- 

 ness in 16 years. To keep posted on the 

 newest discoveries and developments 

 in agriculture, he considers one of the 

 important jobs of a farm adviser. He 

 takes seriously the responsibility of 

 adviser in getting such information 

 across to farmers. 



Mr. Keltner does not smoke or drink. 

 He likes photography and has taken 

 some excellent motion pictures. Of 

 late he and Mrs. Keltner have spent 

 a few days each year during the fishing 

 season trying their luck with. Wall Ey« 

 in northern Wisconsin. • .' 



The Farm Bureau office is headquar- 

 ters for information on agriculture in 

 the city of Rockford. The newspapers 

 and radio station WROK have co-op- 

 erated wholeheartedly with the Farm 

 Bureau, and Mr. Keltner finds time 

 once or twice a week to speak over the 

 station. Soil improvement, livestock 

 sanitation and the commercial services 

 are not the only projects that have been 

 emphasized in 'Winnebago county un- 

 der Mr. Keltner's direction. The county 

 has the highest percentage of cows of 

 any county in Illinois or Wisconsin 

 under test in its three dairy herd im- 

 provement asspciations, according to 

 A. B. Nystrom of the U. S. D. A. 

 Every member belongs to the Farm 

 Bureau. This i» one reason why Win- 

 nebago has mofe than its share of good 

 dairymen and purebred breeders. 



Boys'" and girls' 4-H Club work rates 

 ace high in Winnebago, and Keltner 

 gives Jepson much of the credit for the 

 fine record the county is making in this 

 project. 



School teacha for 13 years, farm 

 adviser 16 years, and a student and 

 leader in agriculture from the begin- 

 ning, Mr. Keltner has an enviable 

 record as an executive who gets things 

 'done. He is carving out a successful 

 career as agricultural adviser over the 

 broad acres of Winnebago. And when 

 that work is completed its results will 

 live long after him in the better farms, 

 finer homes and inspired people who 

 work together there for a happier 

 farm life. — Editor. - .' . 



DECEMBER, 1936 



15 



