FUTURE OF THE FARM BUREAU MOVEMENT 257 



vital importance to the future of the movement whether 

 the farm bureau allows itself to drift into a policy of self- 

 seeking and selfishness, or whether it exercises a positive 

 leadership in the policy of always striving conscientiously 

 to be of service to others ; service to the nation through its 

 efforts to develop and conserve its food supply, and deliver 

 it to consumers at the minimum cost; service to farmers' 

 organizations by helping them in every way to achieve 

 their objects and to fulfil their ideals when these are worth- 

 while, as they usually are ; and service to individual farm- 

 ers through helping them to build up and to maintain a 

 sound and a satisfying agriculture; in short, a policy of 

 giving to others rather than one of getting for self. 



As the membership and the officers of the farm bureau 

 movement choose, deliberately or thoughtlessly, so is the 

 future of this movement likely to be. 



LOCAL COOPERATIVE RELATIONSHIPS 



It seems clear, theoretically at least, that both the public 

 institutions and farmers themselves in the majority of the 

 states believe in a public partnership between local asso- 

 ciations of farmers and the colleges for the conduct of 

 county farm bureau work. The principle is generally ac- 

 cepted as sound. But practice does not always accord 

 with the theory. The partnership is too often nominal, and 

 the farmer partner the local association weak and merely 

 a convenient local vehicle for the public partner. The 

 farm bureau federations have done much to correct this. 



Is real and vital cooperation possible, when the local 

 association does not control its own county funds and has 

 little or no power to determine policies and to adopt or 

 reject a program, except by tolerance or courtesy? True, 

 it can go through the motions in these things, and this may 



