From Yearbook, Department of Agriculture, 1909 
HOW TO MAKE A FARMER: THE BOY WHO GREW THE CORN SHOWN IS STANDING IN 
HIS DEMONSTRATION PATCH 
BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ AGRICULTURAL 
CLUBS 
HERE have been few develop- 
ments in recent years of greater 
educational interest and value than the 
work done by associations of boys and 
girls in agricultural and domestic-art 
undertakings. As a rule these have had 
their beginning in some form of com- 
petitive contest for special occasions or 
awards. Thus we find clubs for corn 
growing, cotton growing, potato grow- 
ing, fruit growing, poultry growing, live- 
stock study, bird study, home culture, 
and high-school improvement. All of 
these have been more or less agricultural 
in their general character. 
To any who are unacquainted with the 
nature of such clubs, it may be explained 
that a corn-growing club is an association 
of boys, who enter into a competition to 
determine which can grow the most or 
the best corn on a certain area of ground 
under definite rules of planting, cultiva- 
tion; and exhibit of their) product. “~ 
cotton-growing club would undertake a 
similar competition in producing the best 
yield of cotton under prescribed condi- 
tions. For girls these contests have fre- 
quently taken the form of bread making, 
sewing, or joint contests with boys in 
gardening or poultry raising. 
The members of such clubs have been 
led to observe more closely ; to recognize 
good and bad qualities in the products 
they have grown, and in the insects, 
fungi, and other various conditions af- 
fecting their work. They have learned 
something of the value of labor, the cost 
of production, and the keeping of simple 
accounts with different farm and house- 
hold affairs; they have been encouraged 
to read good literature, and have learned 
some of the sources of good agricultural 
literature. 
They have learned the value of organ- 
ized effort, of co-operation, and of com- 
promise ; and the social instinct has been 
developed in them—a matter of great 
importance in rural districts, where the 
isolated condition of the people has long 
been a great hindrance to progress. 
The influence upon the communities at 
large—the parents as well as the chil- 
dren—has been wholesome. Beginning 
with an awakening interest in one thing— 
better seed corn, for example—communi- 
ties have rapidly extended their interests 
to other features of rural improvement. 
