Show BIG ARMY AIDS IN FARM developing nearly persons are cooperating with U S department of agriculture HELP GIVEN IN MANY WAYS TOS great majority of those enlisted in work are arc men who till soil for living many business men also contribute nearly persona largely successful farmers fan ners are now aiding the united states slates department of agriculture by furnishing information demonstrating on the local usefulness of new methods testing out theories experimenting aud and reporting on conditions in their districts by helping in short in almost every conceivable way to increase crease the enoi knowledge ledge of we department and to place that knowledge at the service of lie alie people this army of volunteers receives no pay from the government aaby many of these co opera tors are actuated solely by a wish to be of service to their neighbors others take part in this work because of their own keen interest in testing new dew methods or in trying out for themselves crops either new to their own sections or imported from foreign countries through the departments plant explorers it is estimated that at least one farm out of every twenty is working in some wily way with the die department of agriculture anil and thus lias has become a renter of advanced agricultural for its community with such a large number of farmers willing filing to work with the department and the colleges and to test out their recommendations it is clear that at a significant ant aut change has taken place from the lay day when the average farmer wl was as decidedly skeptical about scientific agriculture ri and slow or unwilling to give attention to the recommendations of what many used to designate as book farmers the scientific agriculturist today does not attempt to evolve theories in the seclusion reclusion of a g government overn ment building it Is true he may develop ideas in his bis laboratory but before he Is ready to advise farmers to adopt them he tries them out in actual practice on government farms and then calls on a large number of successful practical farmers to give these ideas fill an independent practical test on some of their own acres in many other cases the scientist goes to the farmer both for his theory and practice lie he studies and analyzes the practice of hundreds or thousands of successful farmers in tin nn endeavor to find the scientific basis or underlying principle of farming methods which have through long years of practical experience been found to be most successful for their farms find neighborhoods of tile the co operators the great majority J are men who farm for a living in a general way the co may be divided into three classes those who furnish the department with specific information acquired in fit the course coi ire of their regular those who denion demonstrate strate in actual practice tile lie agricultural ii methods recommended liy by tile the department anil those who volunteer to perform with new crops and new methods the experiments which furnish science with the necessary essam data for practical recommendations s prominent in the first class are arc the crop correspondents who make possible ill the government estimates of crop production and values in its researches and investigations the department Is also in great measure dependent upon reports from co opera tors fifteen thousand railroad station agents for example have be been en instructed ted by railroad officials to furnish the office of markets and rural organization with postcard reports of ahll shipments of perishable crops which are used la in the market news service of the office four hundred cold storage plants report monthly on their holdings of apples miners millers grain dealers chambers of commerce etc furnish nish the bureau of plant industry with data in connection with the work of grain standardization and 1200 cream erles eries and cheese factories report to the bureau of animal industry these of course are only a few instances butof many they serve to show however the ways in which the department keeps in touch with practical business conditions find and is assisted by tile the same men N w horn hom it Is working to aid lu in tile alie second class of operators cooperators co are the thousands of farmers who unter under the supervision of department specialists cia lists are working out on their own farms the methods recommended by scientific agriculture the boys aud and girls of the pig poultry corn and canning clubs who ire are demonstrating tile the neglected possibilities of profit in 1 these I fields the women who have adopted for their own benefit and a ai 3 a means of instructing their neighbors improved methods in housekeeping the members of the farm bureaus and county associations which support county agents in tile the northern and western states nearly leaders in club work for community welfare el und and the state officials who aid in extension ten slon work in the distribution of obber animal serums and vaccine and in other ways the third way in which farmers are actively operating cooperating co with the department ls Is it ir the of elperin ftp |