RELATION TO COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISES 105 



usually true also that those farmers who have found their 

 business most profitable and most satisfying are those 

 who have been able to secure crops above the average at 

 a reasonable cost of production. 



It is, therefore, both the individual farmer's public obli- 

 gation and his personal intention to continue to produce 

 as large crops as he can with reasonable means and con- 

 tinually to strive for increased efficiency in his business. 

 The public, including the middleman, does not object to 

 any activities of county agents and farm bureaus that tend 

 to bring about this result. It is clearly in the public in- 

 terest. What the public does not always understand and 

 what the middleman complains of is the application of 

 county agent's and the farm bureau's activities to com- 

 mercial organization for buying and selling. It is on this 

 point that the public needs to be clear. 



COMMERCIAL ACTIVITIES 



When we speak of commercial activities among farmers 

 in a public sense we usually mean cooperative buying and 

 selling. 



There seems to be a tendency in some quarters to desire 

 to limit the activities of public agricultural agencies to 

 the increasing of production and to believe that it is not a 

 public function to undertake to help farmers solve their 

 commercial problems. Strangely enough, few persons have 

 objected to the making of appropriations for the general 

 advocacy of cooperation and to the teaching of cooperative 

 principles. Legislatures have even been willing to pass 

 permissive cooperative laws. But when it comes to the 

 application of the principles advocated and to the practi- 

 cal utilization of the legislation through the advice and 

 demonstrations of county agents, opposition usually arises. 



