REAL SEEDI 



Lampe selects hybrid 

 seed ears as carefully as 

 he ever did open pollin- 

 ated seed com. 



y^F YOU raise corn you get divi- 



l/j dends from the Woodford Coun- 

 \^ ty Agricultural Association. Not 

 cash dividends but returns through in- 

 creased yields. Dividends that will con- 

 tinue to roll in for years to come. 



Cash returns meant nothing to the far- 

 sighted Woodford county farmers who 

 organized in 1919 to get quality seed. 

 Nor were they primarily interested in 

 better seed corn. Their aim was to se- 

 cure the best clover, small grain and 

 alfalfa seed available. It all started when 

 W. H. Smith and some of his neighbors 

 bought several hundred pounds of red 

 clover seed. 



"We didn't know much about buck- 

 horn in those days," Smith said. "Few 

 of us recognized a buckhorn seed when 

 we saw one. We had always bought 

 clover seed from anyone who had a sur- 

 plus to sell. Luckily, most of it was 

 pure. 



"Then one winter I bought a batch of 

 seed. I paid $36 a bushel for it. When 

 I got it home and examined it, it didn't 

 look like good seed. M. L. Mosher, who 

 is with the extension department of the 

 University now, was our county farm 

 adviser. I took him a sample of seed. 

 He had it analyzed." 



The report of that analysis could have 

 caused little more excitement if it had 

 been a bombshell and had dropped plunk 

 on the courthouse in Eureka. At least 25 

 per cent of that seed was buckhorn! 



Smith did a lot of thinking in the 

 next few days. And a fellow can do 

 plenty of thinking when he has se\'eral 

 hundred pounds of bum red clover seed 

 on hand that cost him $36 a bushel. 



Instead of hugging his bad bargain all 

 the tighter, as Abraham Lincoln once ad- 

 vised, W. H. Smith talked about it with 

 his neighbors. Many discovered, as a 

 result of hearing Smith's experience, that 

 they were in the same predicament. The 

 Woodford County Farm Bureau board, 

 of which W. H. was a member, studied 

 the problem. 



There was little to do with the foul 

 seed. The big question remained: How 

 can farmers be protected against similar 

 losses in the future? 



Some said there'd ought to be a law. 

 (The Illinois Pure Seed Act was not 

 enacted until 1919.) The organization- 

 minded board soon directed its efforts 

 toward forming a farmers' seed company 

 to buy the finest seed available and sell 

 it to farmers at cost. The Woodford 

 County Agricultural Association, a sim- 

 ple stock company, was organized Octo- 

 ber 28, 1919. Farmers of the county 

 soon subscribed about $10,000 capital 

 stock at $50 per share. It was not, in 

 the strict sense, a cooperative. The com- 

 pany could earn no profit and savings or 

 earnings were reflected in the prices of 

 seeds. Although the Farm Bureau 

 played a leading part in organizing the 

 association and the farm adviser was ap- 

 pointed manager, the company was not 

 legally affiliated with the Farm Bureau. 



Herman S. Lampe was elected presi- 

 dent and J. J. Schneider, vice-president, 

 offices they have held each year since. 

 C. A. Daniels was the first secretary- 

 treasurer. Headquarters for the company 

 were established in the Farm Bureau 

 ofiFice at Eureka. 



To serve farmers who produced their 



Successful 

 Cooperation 



The Woodford County Agricultural 

 Association is one off the State's 

 Oldest Successful Seed Coopera- 

 tives 



own seed, a seed cleaner and a corn germ- 

 ination plant were set up in a building 

 that had been built for a sales bam. 

 The germinator not only tested corn but 

 germinated a new idea in the minds of 

 association officials and patrons. 



In the early '20's there were no definite 

 corn types. Most com growers selected 

 their own seed and, for the most part, 

 each picked his own type. Mosher, an 

 ace crop specialist, and the Farm Bureau 

 directors proposed a test to discover who 

 in the county was selecting the most 

 productive seed corn. This was to be 

 part of the Farm Bureau crop improve- 

 ment project. 



MANAGER GEORGE LUDWIG 

 He sold S6 seed ior 26c 



A call was sent out for bushel samples 

 of seed to be used in the tests. Twenty 

 farmers responded. The seed was planted 

 in test plots. Samples were numbered 

 and planted in single rows with a row of 

 a standard variety between each sample 

 row. This was done to check the variance 

 of fertility over the test plot field. Two 

 such fields were planted on each side of 

 the county. 



NOVEMBER, 1938 



25 



