THE FARMERS' NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS 287 



one in the Mississippi Valley, made extensive inquiries in this 

 field, and drew from their readers many interesting replies. 2 Readers 

 in the Pacific Northwest named various organizations, including 

 among others the following: the Grange; Farmers' Educational and 

 Cooperative Union; village and city Commercial Clubs; Fruit 

 Growers' Associations; local church; organizations within local 

 churches. The paper in the Mississippi Valley conducted a 

 " Country Life Betterment" contest, offering substantial prizes for 

 the best articles written on the subject. The five winning contest- 

 ants named the following organizations: A Farmers' Club in 

 Montana; A Community Club in Wisconsin; A Ladies' Auxiliary 

 Society of a Farmers' Club in Michigan; A County Improvement 

 Association in Iowa; A Farmers' Cooperative Creamery in Minne- 

 sota. Honorable mention was also given to a church congregation 

 in Minnesota, and a Town and Country Community Club in New 

 York. The above lists include two national farmers' organizations 

 the Grange and the Farmers' Union and a great many purely 

 local farmers' organizations. For the purposes of this chapter 

 living farmers' organizations are first classified as local, national, 

 and federation. 



1. Federation of Farm Organizations. Many efforts have 

 been made to federate the farmers. The most popular plan has 

 been to establish at Washington a central headquarters located 

 in a Temple of Agriculture. And now that the American Federa- 

 tion of Labor is occupying its own Labor Temple the idea has 

 gained more potency. As evidence of the growing popularity of a 

 national federation of agriculture, ten recent efforts may be named, 

 although only three may be discussed in any detail: (1) National 

 Agricultural Society; (2) National Chamber of Agriculture Com- 

 mission; (3) National Chamber of Agriculture; (4) American Agri- 

 cultural Association; (5) National Agricultural Association; (6) 

 National Agricultural Organization Society. This last is a frank 

 attempt to transplant Sir Horace Plunkett's Irish Agricultural 

 Organization Society bodily in American soil. Hence its slowness 

 in taking root; (7) National Milk Producers' Federation; (8) 

 Farmers' National Headquarters; (9) National Board of Farm 

 Organizations; (10) American Federation of Farm Bureaus. The 

 last three will be considered in turn. 



(a) The Farmers' National Headquarters. In the year 1910 

 a group of farmers, coming from a number of State farmers' organ- 



2 The papers referred to are The Washington Farmer, Spokane; and The 

 Farm, Stock and Home, Minneapolis. 



