72 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



dividual farmers. There is nothing dominating or paternal about 

 the Illinois Agricultural Association, for instance. On the other 

 hand, it is the mouthpiece and the active servant of the individual 

 farmer and draws its authority from him through the county Farm 

 Bureau. Its special work is to conduct for the individual member the 

 legislative, transportation, and marketing projects which require com- 

 bined power. 



Rational leadership is an absolute essential in Farm Bureau or- 

 ganizations. Safe, sane, conservative men are the best guides to steady 

 the course of action suggested by many enthusiastic minds. The di- 

 rectors of Farm Bureaus and of their state and national associations 

 have developed their plans with commendable care and patient de- 

 liberation. The best proof of this is the success of every important 

 project which has already had time for development. Of course, 

 paid executives are necessary so as to be alw r ays on the job, to carry 

 the plans of the directors to successful conclusion, and, incidentally, to 

 suggest new projects and plans. So far, there has been great respon- 

 sibility placed upon the farm advisers and upon the state and na- 

 tional paid officials. We are working a comparatively new field. It 

 is much more difficult to work out a new and practical plan of market- 

 ing, for instance, than it will be to carry it on twenty years hence, 

 after its details have been fully tested, improved, and established. 



A DIFFUSION OF RESPONSIBILITY 



In the operation of county Farm Bureaus the present tendency 

 favors a rather extended diffusion of responsibility. Township and 

 community units, with local chairmen and committees, serve the gen- 

 eral wishes and requirements of the members. Live-stock shipping 

 associations, dairy, and fruit organizations, and the already established 

 cooperative grain companies, with paid managers, are handling the 

 initial process of cooperative marketing of farm products. Their 

 work is supplemented in a special field by the county breeders' associa- 

 tions, with their combined advertising and consignment sales ; thereby 

 virtually guaranteeing to the young breeder a market for his purebred 

 animals. That alone has marvelously increased the ranks of live-stock 

 breeders in recent years. In Tazewell county, in hve years, twenty- 

 four young men were added to the list of Percheron breeders because 

 of the Tazewell County Percheron Association. 



In thus enlisting the services of many members of a community 

 in its development projects and marketing problems, the Farm Bureau 

 work derives the benefit of suggestion and advice from minds of var- 



