..;as farmers 

 forward go" 



ORGANIZATION NOTES 

 By O. D. Brissenden 



AT THE time this column is being writ- 

 ten the membership in the Illinois 

 Agricultural Association and the county- 

 Farm Bureaus exceeds a total of 114,000 

 members. On March 31, the member- 

 ship as reported to the lAA was 113,440 

 following six months of active member- 

 ship work in most counties where drives 

 met with almost unparalleled success. The 

 total of the county Long Range Goals of 

 more than 117,000 now appears as more 

 than a hope for the immediate future. 

 The county Farm Bureaus throughout the 

 state are reporting many new member- 

 ships being requested without solicita- 

 tion on the part of any one. 



More than 12,000 new members have 

 joined the ranks of organized agriculture 

 in Illinois since Oct. 1, 1944, the begin- 

 ning of this fiscal year. Many counties 

 in the state have either held or are now 

 planning to hold new member meetings 

 as an appropriate means of welcoming 

 these new members into the organization 

 and furnishing them some information 

 with regard to the service to which they 

 are entitled as members. Among coun- 

 ties having held such meetings during 

 the recent month are Edgar, Will, Ma- 

 son, Clark, Kankakee, and Fulton. 



Ensign Diiane Kuntz, organization director 



of Warren county, now serving in the 

 Pacific area, expresses himself as follows in 



Virgil G. Brooks, second from left, become 

 the 900th member of the Moultrie County 

 Form Bureau March 31. At extreme left 

 is Vemie Winings, and at right, Henry 

 Francis and COD T. M. Wright. Francis 

 and Winings are charter members and 

 assisted Wright in signing the 900th con- 

 tract. Moultrie mensbers average more 

 than 100 per township. 



a recent letter to the Organization Director, 

 "I realize that talk out here is cheap, but 

 nevertheless it's a godsend at that. The future 

 is what all of us are fighting for, but the les- 

 sons now learned are going to instill a 

 much keener appreciation of what we have 



always had, but failed to recognize 



Gosh, Brizzy, the organizations boys have 

 certainly gone to town. It stirs the old 

 blood to hear the accounts of a goal of 

 One Million Members in the AFBF during 

 1945." 



Lake County Farm Bureau has a new 

 organization director in Ray R. Spencer, who 

 is well qualified for the position by previous 

 experience as special agent for Country Life 

 and a number of years as truck salesman for 

 Lake-Cook Farm Supply Company. 



Fred G. Smith, farmer and long time Farm 



Bureau member in Warren County Farm 

 Bureau, has taken charge of the organization 

 work in that county succeeding Eldon Powel, 

 who has gone to Brown county as farm ad- 



Carl Robinson, aggressive organization di- 

 rector of Jackson-Perry County Farm Bureau 

 reports that 88 new members were signed 

 during their membership drive and that 150 

 attended the new member meeting. 



Lawr«ice County — 60 new members were 



signed as a result of the membership drive 

 just completed. The team composed of 

 men under 45 years of age won the con- 

 test hands down. 



Clay County — Here the battle of the 



centuries again resulted in the organization 

 workers under 45 years of age winning by 



Officers and directors of the Danville Pro- 

 ducers Dairy at the April annual meeting, 

 left to right, are: Elmer Leamard, vice- 

 president; George W. Lenhart, R. R. Book- 

 waiter, president; William Grubb, and I. 

 W. Ellis, secretary-treasurer. 



signing 55 new members out of a total 

 of 81 reported. Walter Specht, COD, en- 

 thusiastically reported that more members 

 are coming in as a result of this spring cam- 

 paign. 



With a total employee and other attend- 

 ance passing the 2400 mark, the "Member- 

 ship Maintenance" meetings came to a 

 close April 24, with a final session in Ken- 

 dall county. A total of 60 such meetings 

 were held in this year's series, covering the 

 personnel of 80 counties. 



Attendance at this year's meetings was 

 more consistently good, and interest was 

 more sustained, than in the pioneer 62 

 meetings which were held between January 

 and August last year. 



The employees' opportunity and respon- 

 sibility in serving members, and especially 

 in contacting and becoming acquainted with 

 new members, was stressed in all of the 

 sessions. That the rate of cancellations is 

 the index to the success of maintenance pro- 

 grams was another point brought out. 



In afternoon conferences in connection 

 with the M-M meetings, matters of organ- 

 ization policy were discussed. Additional 

 emphasis upon service to members, and 

 means of reaching the long-range goals, were 

 also on the list of topics. 



Rowed Beans Yield More 



Is it true that soybeans planted in 

 rows yield more than those that are 

 drilled.' In general, the answer for 

 Illinois is yes. You can count on three 

 to four bushels more from an acre of 

 rowed beans than from drilled beans 

 when grown on level land in the 

 northern two-thirds of the state. 



J. C. Hackleman, University of Illi- 

 nois College of Agriculture, tells us 

 that the average yield of row planting 

 at the agricultural experiment station 

 was nearly 32 bushels an acre. The 

 average yield for the drilled beans was 

 slightly more than 27 bushels. 



MAY, 1945 



11 



