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don't we use them?. . .Lack of infor- 

 mation is the barrier, a barrier that can 

 only be crossed by an extension of knowl- 

 edge. It appears thus that education is 

 our greatest hope in agriculture to trans- 

 late discoveries into action." 



Scarseth also pointed out that many of 

 the new fanning practices that the farm- 

 er learns from the experiment stations 

 through the extension service require new 

 materials such as fertilizers that are dif- 

 ferent from the old, new feed supple- 

 ment mixtures, new designs in farm ma- 

 chinery such as new fertilizer attachments, 

 hay making equipment, tillage machines, 

 etc., as well as other innovations for 

 which existing industries may be slow 

 to develop. 



"Industry will indeed develop these 

 materials but usually after a sufficiently 

 large market has been created to justify 

 their investments," Scarseth said. 



Since the farmer is interested in these 

 developments he will progress faster if 

 he exercises leadership through his serv- 

 ice companies in developing these new 

 materials, Scarseth pointed out. 



"If he (the farmer) does not lead 

 in developing these new materials, a long 

 lag may be experienced between dis- 

 covery and use. If the service companies 

 are to pioneer new developments, it 

 seems obvious that they must be well in- 



formed on the new discoveries being 

 made," Scarseth asserted. 



The state experiment stations with its 

 system of extension sen-ice moves its 

 newly discovered facts to the farmer, 

 Scarseth said, and parallel with this ar- 

 rangement in effort, an arrangement for 

 action must operate. 



"It is to shorten the gap between dis- 

 coveries that call for the use of materials 

 and the service company distributors that 

 distribute these to the farmer that the 

 American Farm Research Association has 



been created," Scarseth explained. 



"In this respect the new research as- 

 sociation becomes a translator of dis- 

 coveries to the service companies and thus 

 completes the shortcut' to the farmer. 



. . ."The success of this rather new- 

 movement in American agriculture to 

 combine the efforts of education with 

 the action of materials in a rounded pro- 

 gram to bridge the gap between the dis- 

 coverer and the benefactor is bound to 

 be an important factor in keeping Amer- 

 ica strong." 



A new picture of the Illinois Farm Supply 

 Company's board of directors shows, left 

 to right, first row, Wrate H. Hill, Boone 

 county, who replaces Charles Eeslinger. 



Kane; George Chappie, lohn P. White, and 

 lesse L. Beery. Back row, left to right. 

 Harley Neal, Frttnk Flynn, Fred Hemdon. 

 Glenn H. Geiter and R. Monke. 



Babcoek Defines Marketing 



* 



4 ' 



I 



IF THE farmer wants to get a better 

 price for his raw product, he and his 

 cooperative need to set up processing 

 and other marketing services which reach 

 clear across the board to the ultimate con- 

 sumer. 



This is the opinion expressed by H. E. 

 Babcock, at present research director for 

 GLF, and formerly its general manager 

 for some 15 years, at the marketing con- 

 ference of the lAA annual meeting. 



Babcock pointed out that raw material 

 on the farm doesn't ever have a very 

 high value, but it picks up value as it 

 works toward the consumer. 



Marketing, as defined by Babcock, "is 

 the application of a succession of serv-- 

 ices to raw material so as to make the 

 raw material useful and to make it avail- 

 able to the consumer when and where 

 he wants it." 



It is in the performance of the serv- 

 ices in making the raw product into a 

 useful finished product for the consumer 

 that the farmer and his cooperative has 

 an opportunity to improve price, Bab- 

 cock pointed out. 



To illustrate his point, Babcock told 



of the program of his organization which 

 has 275,000 cull dairy cows to market 

 every year. First step taken by his or- 

 ganization was to authorize the building 

 of 10 super markets with meat depart- 

 ments. The next move was to build a 



Marie Heatherington, Illinois Grain Corpor- 

 ation office secretary, is kept busy taking 

 notes on H. E. Babcock, GLF official. A. O. 

 Eckert, lAA board director, and chairman 

 of the marketing committee pays close 

 attention. 



slaughter house costing less than $10,000 

 and to begin slaughtering a few cull dair}- 

 cows and move them into their meat mar- 

 kets. Before long, the meat markets 

 were taking in more than could be han- 

 dled in a 510,000 slaughter plant, so a 

 $25,000 plant was built. 



"In five years we will have built an 

 across-the-board' marketing serv-ice, clear- 

 through to the hamburger sandwich. We 

 are now putting in some diners — little 

 restaurants alongside these super markets, 

 because it is in the diners that the cull 

 dairy cows turn up as hamburgers," Bab- 

 cock explained. 



Babcock warned however that "we 

 must ne\-er set out on the road w-here we 

 have a monopolistic view on these mar- 

 keting ser\-ices. All I w-ant to do as a 

 farmer is to be in on a percentage of all 

 of these ser\-ices so that I can influence 

 them." 



Babcock said that one philosophy was 

 that "farmers could set up a cooperative, 

 obtain a lot of commodities, and then 

 by the very possession of those commod- 

 ities could get the farmer more money 

 for them through bargaining pow-er." He 

 indicated that this type of cooperative 

 w-as considerably less effective than the 

 one which carried its ser\'ices clear across 

 the board. 



DECEMBER. 1944 



37 



