CHAPTER IV 



RELATION OF THE FARM BUREAU AND THE 



COUNTY AGENT TO COMMERCIAL 



ENTERPRISES 



No problem with which the county agent has to deal is 

 more alive and full of possibilities for failure and trouble 

 than that of his relationship to commercial enterprises, 

 especially enterprises of a cooperative character. These 

 relationships are the source of many difficulties with farm- 

 ers on the one hand and with dealers and middlemen on 

 the other. With the pressure of an unfavorable economic 

 situation and as a result of a keen desire for a way out, 

 farmers have everywhere seized upon cooperative organi- 

 zation for buying and selling as a way to eliminate what 

 seems to them unnecessary and too high costs of handling 

 their products to the consumer. As a consequence they 

 have naturally demanded that county agents whose de- 

 clared purpose is the improvement of agricultural con- 

 ditions help them in perfecting the organizations through 

 which they may buy and sell cooperatively. 



Neither the farmer nor the consumer has fully under- 

 stood the limitations under which the county agent neces- 

 sarily works. The farmer especially has not always appre- 

 ciated that the county agent is a public service and not a 

 class representative and that it is his obligation to teach 

 principles and to demonstrate practices and not to act as 

 the agent of farmers in cooperative buying or selling. It 

 is difficult to believe that many middlemen and dealers 

 have not deliberately misunderstood the county agent's 



