A farm bureau is an organization of farmers and ranchers who combine to promote agriculture through' co-operative study of farm conditions.

For many years there have been farmers' clubs, granges, institutes, unions, and alliances. These have been more or less successful but many have passed away, perhaps from lack of usefulness. Some of these organizations have not had a definite purpose and have therefore failed to find a permanent place in rural affairs.

The farm bureau is distinct from all of these. It is not primarily a social organization; neither is it essentially to unite farmers so as to lower prices of stuffs bought and to raise prices of products sold. But it is formed to bring together for mutual co-operation those farmers who want to investigate the fundamental problems that are involved in production on their farms.

Every state and territory has at least one "experiment farm" supported by federal and state funds. These have been exceedingly valuable because the results therefrom were noted by men whose business and interest it was to observe. The acreages of these farms were small; their crops were often meagre and yet they have been worth millions beyond their cost because the records of productions and the conditions under which they were grown were known and noted.

Many of our farm problems are already solved on the farms of the nation. Individuals have found the solution of vexing questions that are agitating the experiment stations and agricultural colleges. But these solutions usually fall out of sight unnoted or are known only

to the man on whose farm they occur. If these unknown and unnoted experiments could be gathered they would at once add much to our view of agriculture.

In America there are on the average more than 100.000 farms to each "experiment farm." Obviously, if the results on some small

The farm bureau is composed of those persons in the county interested
in agriculture who desire to promote its prosperity. Usually there
should be at least one-fifth the farmers in its membership.

(Paying in a dollar, San Diego County Farm Bureau meeting.
Boys of the agricultural clubs assisting.)

percentage of these could be viewed from the same standpoint as at the experiment farm, the benefits would enormously outnumber the records achieved by the experiment stations. It is, of course, impossible to gather all this material or to note all the changing conditions on farms. But it may be possible to gather together in one county organization the wide-awake and interested farmers who will compare their results with those of others and, in a more or less scientific way, plan out experiments and demonstrations on their own farms. Such is a farm bureau.

Fundamentally, then, a farm bureau for the county can be collectively a sort of giant experiment station with several hundred observers who hold a monthly caucus to compare results.

The farm bureau has a trained man to aid it :-The Farm Adviser. It is his business to help interpret results, to point out new lines of work and to deduce conclusions from the evidence at hand. The farm bureau can be of greater value to the county than the farm adviser. Together, they can be of more benefit than either alone.

The most general method of starting a county farm bureau is to call a big meeting which is advertised in every way possible. (San Diego County Farm Bureau.)

Other activities may concern the farm bureau besides local research into agricultural problems.

The farm bureau may be a sort of rural chamber of commerce and thus be the guardian of rural affairs. It can take the lead in agitation. for good roads, for better schools, and for cheaper methods of buying and selling. Perhaps, most of all, it can help promote the social institutions of country life. Some rural neighbors are so starved for

recreational meetings that they will come out to anything from a patent-medicine show to a school meeting. The farm bureau can help put more recreation into rural life. Every country neighborhood ought to have some social gathering at least once a week. It is almost as much needed as the spiritual congregations at the church, or the educational assemblages of the children at the school-house.

But very surely and insistently, the farm bureau is not first and foremost for these good and desirable as they may be. Perhaps, the farm bureau can help to buy cheaper and better seeds, can help to boost the local socials, can encourage the faltering school teacher, can get out and talk for good roads-but its first and surest function is to increase the local knowledge of agricultural fact.

THE GENERAL PLAN

The membership of the farm bureau is composed of those persons in the county interested in agriculture who desire to promote its prosperity through the formation of a county organization to which they pay a dollar a year each. Usually a successful county farm bureau should have at least one-fifth of the farmers in its membership.

The whole membership of the farm bureau meets together but once a year at its annual meeting in the fall. At that time the general officers are elected,-president, vice-president and four directors at large.

For practical purposes, the county organization is divided, along geographical lines, into ten or twelve centers. Each center that has ten or more members elects a director as leader. He acts as chairman of the meetings and represents the center on the board of the farm bureau.

Thus, if there are ten centers in the county, there ultimately may be fourteen directors on the board:-four at large and one from each

center.

The directors usually hold a meeting once a month when reports are heard from the various centers and the general plans for the movement in the county are considered.

The officers elect a secretary-treasurer who holds the funds and keeps the records of the farm bureau.

The farm bureau is financed by dues of a dollar a year which its members pay into the organization. The expenses of the bureau are those of hiring offices, the carrying on of correspondence, printing of pamphlets, etc. Sometimes, but not usually, the farm bureau pays the expenses of the directors who come to the board meetings once a month.

THE GENERAL MEETING ONCE A YEAR

The annual meeting-at which the election of officers takes place-is held in the fall, usually at the county-seat. It should be so arranged as to make it a matter of considerable local interest and importance: it may be an all-day gathering to which speakers of note are invited; it may sometimes take the form of a large public banquet,

The county is divided into ten or more districts called "farm bureau centers'' and a director elected to represent each center. The board of directors holds a meeting once a month at which the policies of the farm bureau are determined.

(Directors' meeting, San Joaquin County Farm Bureau.)

or of a country picnic. The main effort is to have present a large proportion of the membership of the entire farm bureau in order that the officers elected may be adequately representative and that once a year the organization may realize its strength and its large membership.