326 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



whole business and life of the farm must also be taken into account. 

 Our object should be to help develop the country community life 

 as well as the personal character." In the same spirit the Dominion 

 Minister of Agriculture in introducing the Agricultural Instruction 

 Act of Canada, a very well-framed measure, in 1913, insisted upon 

 the necessity of developing rural community life in a passage 

 already quoted. 



The United States Department of Agriculture has accordingly 

 made a special object of the organisation of rural community life, 

 charging one of its " Bureaus " with the prosecution of this task. It 

 causes organisers to be trained to the work, and issues special 

 pamphlets containing advice on the organisation of community life ; 

 and everywhere farm bureaus and county agents are instructed to 

 devote particular attention to such work. The county agents have 

 their hands pretty full anyhow, and are much " on the move." 

 However, so far from neglecting the duty newly set them, they have 

 shown themselves extremely active in this province of their work. 

 A report issued in 1916 shows that in the year ending June 30th, 

 1915, under their guidance in the south alone about 500 communities 

 were organised, and in the north and west about 875. Most of these 

 community organisations are indeed only " community clubs," not 

 fully socialised communities. However, they represent a most 

 useful half-way house from which to reach eventually the desired 

 ultimate end, the ready-made cluster, out of which the great final 

 pile is more easily put together. And the farm bureaus have been 

 found exceedingly useful in the prosecution of their task. Obviously 

 the farm bureaus are peculiarly qualified for this work, as being 

 thoroughly representative organisations, recruited from all quarters 

 of their district and personally representing all the various sections 

 of local society, each member being bent upon energetic furthering 

 action, or they would not have joined the bureau. 



Our circumstances in this old country of ours are under this 

 aspect essentially different from those which American authorities 

 have to deal with. We have not the motley crowd of immigrants 

 from all conceivable countries, squatting down, with their varied 

 national ways, in our villages, which as organised institutions date 

 from grey antiquity. We have not to square the blocks which are 

 to go into our wall and find convenient lying places for all sorts of 

 angular stones and bricks. Our masonry is well set, and has settled 

 down for good long since into its accustomed bed. Our rural 

 organisation has taken its racy shape from the dominating squire 

 down to the homeless labourer, dependent upon his employer's 



