I do not wish to convey that this Crop Improvement Committee should receive the credit for this immense bumper crop. The high prices of last year stimulated the increase of acreage.

I desire to state explicitly that the Crop Committee is not organized to increase acreage. We are organized to promote the betterment and the improvement of barley and hops, rather than to increase the acreage. It would be a calamity if the market this year were fifty cents for barley. If we had a low price on barley the farmers would not grow it again next year. I personally maintain that eighty-cent barley is a healthier condition than a low price. The farmers will grow barley at eighty cents, as eighty-cent barley is the equal of one dollar wheat. It behooves the brewers to look for quality rather than for quantity; it behooves us to go to the maltster and ask him to get the best barley. Your maltster can then buy from the farmer at a high price, which means that the farmer will continue to raise good barley rather than a great amount of it.

I could talk to you at length on the various matters pertaining to the promotion and betterment of our crops, but I will not take up your time; but I especially request you to see our exhibit in the other building.

I might also mention that the National Crop Improvement Committee is giving a great deal of attention to the conservation of the soil, which, after all, is the greatest question before the American people. We must put into the soil what we take away from it. It is the old story, that you cannot milk the cow without feeding it; you cannot check against your bank account without depositing; you cannot subtract without adding; therefore, when we take from the soil we must put back into it.

I also wish to mention, Mr. President and gentlemen, that your Crop Improvement Committee is doing everything it possibly can to promote the interests of this Association and its members. (Applause.)

The formal report of the Crop Improvement Committee was thereupon presented. It runs as follows:

REPORT OF THE CROP IMPROVEMENT COMMITTEE.

The leading maltsters and brewers have complained for several years of the scarcity of choice brewing barley and of the best varieties of domestic hops, but the abnormally high prices of the

1911 crop brought the matter home to the whole brewing trade, and served as a stimulus to the work of the Crop Improvement Committee. With regard to barley, it is well known that we are raising in the United States a much larger quantity than is required for brewing purposes, and yet the brewers have had the greatest difficulty in getting enough barley of the right quality to satisfy their requirements. The Grain Exchanges are now grading barley with a wider variation than any other cereal. Last year, when choice brewing barley was selling as high as $1.20 per bushel, feed barley was sold at 40c. to 50c. per bushel. But for the fact that the development of the beer business was temporarily checked during the past fiscal year by abnormal weather conditions, it would have been very difficult to secure enough barley and hops to meet our actual needs. The beer sales are bound to continue increasing, and it is therefore absolutely necessary that we should look ahead and make provision for the future.

After careful consideration of all the various plans that have been put in operation for crop improvement and crop development, your Committee came to the conclusion that the work undertaken by the Crop Improvement Committee of the Grain Exchanges was the most practical constructive work that had yet been done in any general way. We therefore made arrangements with the said committee to join in their undertaking, and to extend it at once to the barley interests.

The following report made by Mr. Bert Ball, Secretary of the Crop Improvement Committee of the Grain Exchanges, tells its own story, and covers both the purpose and methods of the undertaking:

MR. BALL'S REPORT.

Investigation of agricultural truths is twenty-five years in advance of their introduction and practice. It is admitted by the Government and the State Extension Departments, and all others who are working along crop improvement lines, that the mere giving of lectures and the printing of bulletins, while extremly useful, do not reach the man who needs them most. Therefore it is our task to make our plans for barley development so that we may be sure that the right persons are reached, and we are endeavoring to make the subject so attractive that barley will be given its proper place every year as part of a plan of crop rotation.

It is practically impossible to improve any one crop at the expense of the others, and therefore this Committee has joined forces with the Grain Exchanges and has agreed to look out for barley in its proper relation to wheat, oats, corn, rye and hay.

Nor will we merely preach the doctrine from the platform, but in co-operation with the Grain Exchanges we shall work for the establishment in each county of a county farm bureau which is to be put in charge of a competent agriculturist of business tact and judgment, thus laying the foundation for the permanency of our plans, for personal service adapted to local conditions.

The greatest achievement of this Committee during the past year has been to concentrate all plans in all stages of progress through many different channels. There are thousands of workers in every State and every county, but heretofore there have been no clearing house of ideas or activities. The consequence has been that we have often been working at cross purposes and wasting our energy, time and money. We wish to state that we have been instrumental in practically eliminating all plans not in harmony with this central idea and we are in the closest partnership with the Agricultural Department at Washington, the State agricultural institutions, farmers' organizations, grain trades, the bankers, brewers, maltsters, millers, the country, metropolitan, agricultural and trade press, the railroads, local boards of trade, and other commercial organizations, and the superintendents of county schools.

THE COUNTY AS A UNIT.

It is now the general consensus of opinion that we should select the county as a unit. There are a few general principles which can be made a basis for these county organizations, but the plan is very elastic and each county is being studied individually from within and plans are being adopted in each county to cover the local conditions as we find them.

We

We have learned that we cannot work from the top down. must work from the soil up. Conditions political, social and temperamental must be taken into consideration. The success of these county organizations we find depends largely upon the human equation. It is largely a matter of leadership and it is our first business to find the leaders, regardless of occupation. In one community he is a banker, in another an editor, a farmer, a miller,

a superintendent of schools, but more often the subject is introduced by the commercial clubs.

A BUSINESS PROPOSITION.

It is not an exaggeration to say that in an average grain growing county in any of the States, the yield may be increased one million dollars annually, if those who are below the average would adopt the methods of those above the average. In other words, every farmer must become a business man. Good land is too valuable to be improperly farmed.

The successful ones are already business men, and it is nonsense for us to offer gratuitous advice or printed matter to those who are already making more money than almost any other class of men. We have undertaken the matter more intimately and are reaching the unsuccessful farmers, who through poverty, prejudice, indifference or self-satisfaction, are constantly dragging down the county average. We are bringing communities to see that they have a right to know not only what the production of the county is, but who really produces it.

A PAID AGRICULTURIST FOR EACH COUNTY.

It is our purpose to establish under some plan a paid agriculturist in each county, and our main efforts are bent in this direction. It is argued by some that this is a governmental function and the man should be supplied and paid for by the government. This we are pleased to say is being accomplished through a working arrangement of our Committee with the Office of Farm Management, and we are now co-operating in a great number of counties, the government agreeing to take our place in the local fund after the first year. Dr. Galloway, the Chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry, who is in charge of this work, and heartily agrees with us that this work, however, cannot be entirely paternal, says:

"Our experience here has taught us that it is just as dangerous to give the farmer too much help as it is to attempt to give him too little help. The problem is to teach him to help himself and to help him far enough so that he will have a realization of the fact that he has the power to help himself. We accomplish the best results by systematic studies of what is taking place within the farm itself and then by so utilizing those studies as to point the way to the farmer in the matter of organizing his work and reorganizing

his farm to the end of a more economical use of labor and a more profitable production of crops. In the early days of our work we attempted to bring the farmer to a realization of his needs and his possibilities by conducting what we called demonstration farms at various points in the South and in the North. These were not successful and we abandoned them for the plan of making every man's farm practically a demonstration farm, but the man himself must be the demonstrator and must understand why and for what reason he is demonstrating. A good many plans for helping the farmer have been and are being proposed. Any or all of these, in our judgment, will fail if paternalism is made the predominant factor."

There are others who argue that the man should be hired by the State. This is also in entire harmony with our plan. We have succeeded in becoming included in an arrangement whereby the State Agricultural College and the United States Government appoint a State leader, one-half of his salary being paid by the government and the other half by the State, and he is put in charge of supervising the county demonstration work.

It is our province to form the local associations and ask that the county agriculturist be endorsed by the State leader and when this has been done, the local man is appointed county agent for the government, which will pay a portion of his salary and give him the franking privilege for his mail.

A MILLION DOLLARS.

Upon learning of our plan, Mr. Julius Rosenwald, of Sears, Roebuck & Company, asked the Secretary of the Committee to put this county plan in writing, which was done, and a million dollar contribution was made, one thousand dollars to go to each of one thousand counties, which would form its own agricultural bureau, either independently, or in conjunction with the government or the State College of Agriculture, or both. The expense of conducting these county farm bureaus is estimated by the Government to be about $2,700 a year, but we are of the opinion that the fund should be from $3,000 to $5,000 per year, according to the nature of the work.

As conditions vary in different counties it is necessary that each county raise its funds according to the best judgment of the members of the local organization. This committee, however,