199 



ment spirit. He goes to towns where he is invited and assists in town 

 planning projects, the beautification of the town commons, the planning 

 of school and church grounds, the care of cemeteries, home improvement, 

 the acquiring of land for play grounds, and other things of this nature. 



We assist the smaller libraries of our state to develop the habit of 

 reading agricultural literature by loaning them for certain periods of time 

 traveling libraries of from ten to forty of the latest and best books on 

 rural life subjects. 



We believe thoroughly in the value of demonstration plots placed out 

 on farms operated by the owners all over the state. Every year we have 

 a large number of these showing the results to be gained from the proper 

 use of fertilizers, high grade seeds, rotations, pasture renovation, etc. We 

 are also placing alfalfa plots out in a similar way. The best demonstra- 

 tion farm, in our judgment, is one operated by a man who can show a profit 

 from his labor and management. 



We are co-operating with boards of trade and other organizations in 

 the placing and maintaining of county agricultural advisers or representa- 

 tives. We believe that these trained men, confining their work to a rela- 

 tively small area, becoming personally and intimately acquainted with the 

 farmers of their territory, and demonstrating to them better farm prac- 

 tices, advising them in problems of farm management and marketing, 

 and bringing into each county for the building up of the agriculture and 

 rural life of that county all the help that can be obtained from the 

 state college, the other agencies created in the state for purposes of fur- 

 thering agricultural growth, and the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture, are to be mighty factors in accomplishing the exceedingly difficult 

 task of reaching the last farmer on the last farm in any region. 



If you do not think that there is a live interest in this county work 

 movement in our state, I wish you might have been with me last night 

 at a dinner of three hundred of Springfield's largest and most influential 

 business men. They sat for nearly six hours and talked over in a most 

 interesting and intimate sort of way the things they might do for develop- 

 ing the rural life of Hampden County. 



We attempt to instruct the poultrymen, the beekeepers, the flori- 

 culturists, the market gardeners of our state in the same manner as we do 

 the dairymen, the orchardists, or the general farmers. 



We publish popular, yet reliable, leaflets and bulletins in large numbers. 



Within a month we shall have a man in the field helping to organize 

 farmers' co-operative organizations for purchase and sale, giving assistance 

 to farmers in marketing and along rural credit lines. 



We help thousands by personal conferences, farm visits, and letters 

 each year. In fact our statistics show that we definitely and directly 

 reached more than 300,000 people in our state during the past year, and of 

 course there is no way of estimating those who were indirectly touched 

 or influenced. 



