AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION 285 



ing such a policy. These two organizations were demanding the with- 

 holding of crops from market, production controls, and later cooperative 

 marketing. In effect, they were condemning the proverbial policy of 

 making two blades of grass grow where only one had grown before, the 

 policy which the government, the agricultural colleges, and the county 

 agents originally had adopted as the means of bettering the economic 

 position of the farmers. Thus the traditional policy of the Union and 

 Equity formed another bond between the Bureau and the county agents, 

 for their program of attacking the existing marketing mechanism could 

 not have done other than to arouse the opposition of some of those agencies 

 which had given financial and moral support to both the farm bureaus 

 and the county agents in the beginning and to unite them behind these 

 two new groups. 



Despite the backwardness of the county agents in tackling the dis- 

 tributive aspects of farming, the Farm Bureau had a distinct advantage 

 because of the early ties. During and after the war, when the farm bureaus 

 in the western Middle West were paying more attention to marketing, 

 the close relations between the farm bureaus and the extension service 

 had already been established. Neither the government nor the com- 

 mercial interests behind the new marketing program were prepared to 

 endorse organizations which had been in the field earlier. If the county 

 agents and the county farm bureaus had been successful in demonstrating 

 their efficiency in stimulating the productive capacities of the farmers, 

 conceivably they could do the same with respect to marketing. Why 

 change from tried and acceptable leadership to the erratic and untried 

 of other organizations? 



In one respect the actions of the American Farm Bureau Federation 

 may be compared with those of the two major political parties, which 

 appropriated reform issues popularized by third parties. While the Farm- 

 ers' Union, the Grange, and the Equity agitated for cooperative market- 

 ing reform, the county agents and farm bureaus for the most part were 

 clamoring for increased agricultural production. The American Farm 

 Bureau Federation was organized about this program of increased pro- 

 duction, yet at the same time it pledged itself to tackle the problem of 

 distribution. In this way it gained considerable support from both sides, 

 but as with all compromises it alienated the affections of some of its early 

 benefactors and well-wishers. 



