No. 4.] ORGANIZED EFFORT. 27 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE BY 

 ORGANIZED EFFORT. 



BY EUGENE DAVENPORT, DEAN OP THE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE OF 

 THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, AND DIRECTOR OF THE ILLINOIS 

 AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 



American agriculture is rapidly assuming proportions 

 which call for much more than individual industry, frugality 

 and skill. It has become in essence one vast manufacturing 

 enterprise, and many of the methods and principles of the 

 manufacturing business must be employed for its further and 

 final development. Among these, I take it, none will rank 

 higher or be productive of more substantial results than co- 

 operative effort, through organized bodies of practical farmers 

 and business men. 



That agricultural prosperity is based upon something more 

 enduring and far-reaching than mere individual success, is a 

 principle long ago recognized; and much has been accom- 

 plished by boards of agriculture, by State, district and county 

 fairs, by the farmers' institute, by the farmers' alliance and 

 by the grange. The object of these organizations, however, 

 has largely been to stimulate individual activity and skill, to 

 improve the social conditions of the open country, to secure 

 a defensive alliance, or to reduce the cost of commodities by 

 shortening and straightening the road between the door of the 

 farm and the warehouse of the manufacturer. 



All these are good in their way, and all have benefited 

 agriculture; but it is strange that so little has been done, 

 especially in the east and the middle west, toward stimulating 

 and developing trade in the products of the farm, — in other 

 words, toward educating and stimulating the buying power 

 of our constituency. I repeat that it is passing strange that 

 thirty years ago we attempted to regulate the handling of 

 goods that we purchase, but we have not yet done much toward 



