ORGANIZING THE COMMUNITY 189 



already been stated but cannot too often be repeated 

 that even in agriculture the necessity of this relatively 

 small grouping has been proved over and over again. 

 It is the local church, the local school, the local Grange 

 or Union or farmers' club that gets results. It is im- 

 possible for a single farmer to cooperate with seven 

 million other farmers. If he cooperates at all, he must 

 cooperate with at most a few hundred, in nearly all of 

 the effective acts of his life. The nation, the state, 

 even the county, are too big for effective cooperation. 

 So somewhere, in some way, we must bring together 

 a few hundred farmers, and from these form what we 

 are calling the local farming community. Whether 

 there shall be 100 farmers or 1,000 farmers depends 

 upon conditions. But there must be enough of them 

 so that they can work together through institutions 

 which they can maintain effectively, and not so many 

 of them that they cannot work together as one man. 



2. The local community fully organized deals with 

 all parts of the farm problem. Consequently, it is 

 " agriculture in the small." The interests of the local 

 community are identical with the interests of all the 

 farmers of the nation or of the world, but on a scale 

 so small that they can be dealt with. 



3. Acquaintance, friendship, cooperation, frequent 

 meetings are essential if people are to work together 

 for any length of time in any efficient way. Now these 

 things are possible only in relatively small groups, and 

 when the small group is acquainted, friendly, coopera- 

 tive, meeting together, you have a community. 



4. If efficiency in agriculture and country life cannot 

 be realized in these ways, it cannot be realized at all. 

 That is to say, if the great majority of perhaps 50,000 

 farming groups or local communities are not pro- 



