EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATION 343 



conditions of the farming region. It should bring 

 tlie current information on rural questions to the in- 

 dividual either directly out of the experience and 

 training of the local leader or through cooperation 

 with the proper department of the state or federal 

 institution. Some sort of an agricultural clearing- 

 house arrangement was essential and this the Farm 

 Bureau provides. In New York State the movement 

 developed out of an effort to secure this local co- 

 ordination in Broome County in March, 1911, where 

 a college-trained man was placed by the combined 

 effort and support of the railroads, the Chamber of 

 Commerce of Binghamton, the State and Federal De- 

 partments of Agriculture and the State College of 

 Agriculture. The duties of this agricultural agent, 

 who had an office in the Chamber of Commerce rooms 

 of the chief city in the region, was to become ac- 

 quainted with the farmers and their conditions, to 

 consider their queries so far as he could, to call in 

 outside help when necessary and in general to pro- 

 mote the coordination and development of all the 

 rural agencies in an area which was roughly marked 

 oft' by a boundary of forty miles around the city of 

 Binghamton. 



Other communities seeking the same sort of help 

 took up the idea and worked it out in a slightly 

 different w-ay, particularly with reference to its finan- 

 cial support, and a definite policy began to be formu- 

 lated. In Jefferson County the whole population 

 first gave support to the movement through a con- 

 tribution from the County Board of Supervisors, to- 



