20 
Boys and Girls Had Good Time 
American Agriculturist, September 27, 1924 
at State Fair 
Jefferson and Orange County .Junior Project Teams Share in Gold Medal Honors 
T HIS year’s Boys’ and Girls’ Junior Project 
camp at the State Fair was without a doubt 
the best that has ever been held. There were 
something like sixty boy and girl demonstrators 
in the agricultural and home-making contests, to 
say nothing of those who attended the camp to 
take part in live stock exhibits or the stock 
judging contests. The counties represented in 
the Junior Project demonstration contests were 
Delaware, Orange, Oswego, Otsego, Madison, 
Here is the Jefferson County team that won the gold 
medals in the agricultural project contest 
Genesee, Allegany and Steuben (both counties 
represented by one team), Nassau, Onondaga, 
Tioga, Wyoming, Chenango, Livingston, Jeffer¬ 
son and Rensselaer. 
Prof. W. J. Wright was superintendent of the 
entire boys’ and girls’ department and Dan Chase 
of the State Department of Education at Albany, 
had direct charge of the camp. He did a good 
job. I attended the camD on Friday and it cer¬ 
tainly was great to see how much the boys and 
girls got out of it. 
The outstanding improvement this year in the 
camp was the dining-room, in charge of Miss 
Stevens, who is Assistant State Leader, directing 
home-making projects. Before this year the boys 
and girls had very unsatisfactory conditions to 
face as far as the meals were concerned, to say 
.nothing of sleeping quarters. Last year there 
By FRED W. OHM 
Associate Editor, American Agriculturist 
was, some improvement when the dining-room 
was established on the porch of the fair grounds 
restaurant but the weather was so cold that the 
boys and girls were not at all comfortable. This 
year the second floor of the restaurant was re-i 
served for the Juniors and it was ideal. Between 
courses they sang their club songs, gave yells and 
had a good time. If the sleeping accommo-, 
dations and demonstration quarters were only, 
as good as the dining facilities this year, it would 
be magnificent. 
There is no question but what the boys and 
girls need a building of their own on the grounds 
that will take care of their dormitory problems 
and dining-room and at the same time be ade¬ 
quate to house their exhibits, at least their demon¬ 
strating booths. 
This Junior Project demonstrating contest at 
the State Fair has become quite an institution 
and with a little encouraging it is going to become 
one of its outstanding features. If there were a 
boys’ and girls’ building on the grounds, there' 
would be no question of it becoming one of the 
most popular, for folks naturally like to hear 
boys and girls get up and tell what they have done. 
During the past five years there has been a magni¬ 
ficent gain in the work. The writer was the first 
full-time county club agent in New York State 
and it is mighty gratifying to see what strides 
have been made since that time we had a Junior 
Project Exhibit. 
In the demonstration contest, the agricultural 
and home-making projects were divided. Miss 
C. C. Williams and Miss Mary L. Chase, of the 
State College of Agriculture, judged the home¬ 
making projects and the writer judged the agricul¬ 
tural projects. The North Country and the lower 
Hudson shared the honors for the gold medal 
awards. The girls’ team, consisting of Evelyn 
Hock and Catherine Berrian of New Hampton, 
Orange County, were by far the outstanding home¬ 
making demonstrators. Both Miss Williams and 
Miss Chase marveled at the ability of the girls 
in the demonstration of the selection of materials 
and lines in dressmaking. This demonstration 
was all the more creditable for it was original and 
home-trained. 
Jefferson County shared the honors with Orange, 
two of its' boys, Kent Stoodley and Lawrence 
White, both of Adams Center, taking the gold 
medals with their rope splicing demonstration. 
It was the first time that a mechanics project had 
ever been given at the State Fair and the two 
Jefferson County boys did magnificently. My 
only criticism of their demonstration was that 
they might have used a little larger rope and had 
the two ends of different colors in order that the 
audience could more easily follow the splice. 
Oswego County took second honors in the 
home-making contest with Onondaga third. In 
the agricultural projects, Chenango County took 
second with its garden planting demonstration 
Here are the Orange County girls who won the gold medals 
in the home-making contest 
and the Onondaga boys, not to be outdone by 
their fair colleagues, just nosed out Orange 
County by a single point for third place. 
The counties represented and the personnel 
of the teams are as follows: 
Allegany-Steuben: Vera Bovee and Mabel Jones of 
Canesteo demonstrated how to make a kimono dress. 
Frank Randolph and Earl Wilcox of Bath, showed how 
to treat potato seed for disease. 
{Continued on -page 219) 
Developing Farm Leadership Along Business Lines 
An American Agriculturist Wednesday Evening Radio Talk Broadcast from WEAF 
F ARMERS of America want additional farmer 
leadership. They freely and vigorously state 
their want. Friends in town and city heartily 
agree and ask what is to be done about it. 
Farmers heretofore have needed added leaders, 
but have said little about it, few recognizing the fact, 
many actually opposing moves to supply leaders. 
Such was the case when they needed agricultural 
college trained leaders, and when in 1855 Michigan 
boldly started out to meet the need. Another 
faint, at least far from vociferous call was for 
leadership from agricultural experiment station 
workers, first volunteered in 1877 by Connecticut. 
In a somewhat similar way was provided new 
leaders, when in 1889 the United States Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture was organized, headed by its 
cabinet member secretary. We might trace, in 
connection with outgrowths of these three leading 
features of our system, a similar tendency on the 
part of farmers. But time limits us to-night. 
Since 1900, however, the farmer’s voice has been 
noticeably developing strength, and since 1917 
he can shout with the best of them. 
Now, three years after the crest of the crisis, 
twice or three times as many years after its start, 
a partially satisfactory leadership has been worked 
up to meet the farmers’ need and demand for safe 
guidance in these larger aspects of their business. 
Let us stop to consider—is it likely that this 
occasion is to be the last widely felt one for 
emergency leaders? Does it not seem certain that 
other crises even more costly to farmers will occur, 
and that, too, in near-by years, probably in this 
generation? 
By O. S. MORGAN 
School of Business , Columbia. University 
/ 
Our national system of agricultural leadership, 
barely set forth in earlier remarks, is, when we 
consider the extent and diversity of the produc¬ 
tion area served thereby, the most efficient in the 
world. This system if not perfect is not therefore 
adversely criticized. We depend chiefly upon the 
leadership of the colleges of agriculture with 
their offerings of short and long courses together 
with much of the rest of the system. In national 
emergencies, however, we need additional leaders, 
trained up by the system PLUS. The plus we 
shall call the specialists with additional training 
in university and business. 
One after the other, telephone, rural mail de¬ 
livery, automobile, good roads, this consummate 
communication medium, the radio, has set out 
thought and action free and freer. The young 
man or woman preparing for agricultural leader¬ 
ship should take a lesson from this procession of 
seven-day wonders. Training that yesterday 
would win chief places will to-day hardly secure 
second-rate. So where formerly a professional 
training in a four-year course in college was the 
last word, now, additional preparation is the 
necessary investment. 
The university course should be in part general, 
this to include selected studies in economics, 
sociology, psychology, mathematics, the natural 
and physical sciences. In part the course should 
be specifically a business course, studies carefully 
selected from accounting, advertising, banking, 
finance, industrial management, insurance, law, 
marketing, statistics, and transportation. 
After completing two or three years of university 
or post-graduate -work the future leader of farmers 
should be positioned in some well-organized city 
business. Positions will be waiting for him in 
accounting, banking, insurance, journalism, mar¬ 
keting, transportation, and other pertinent busi¬ 
ness in office, factory, store or street. Active 
participation in this type of business training 
should persist for two years or more, untjl he had 
a trustworthy sample of city business methods. 
If hundreds of men and women having this kind 
of super training were now .ready for leadership 
they would effectively supplement tfie more 
narrowly trained and shortly treble the number 
of efficient leaders. The benefit to farmers w r ould 
be twofold: first, the courage and assurance to 
carry on, and next, marked material prosperity. 
These remarks are prepared primarily as sug¬ 
gesting a plan for those young people wdio have 
already demonstrated farmer leadership timber or 
are ambitious to do so. Individuals of this quality 
are entitled to place and power among farmers on 
the usual condition; viz., exceptional fitness. 
Large, extended, wisely selected preparation in 
addition to the certain ability to interpret farm 
life is demanded of prospective leaders. Positions 
of great and immediate service to farmers wait 
for men and women who will make this large prep¬ 
aration. Similar heroic preparations have sup¬ 
plied adequate leadership to other producing 
classes in America. A no less heroic course will 
supply farmers. 
