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 BOYS' AGRICULTURAL CLUBS, 
 
 DICK J. CROSBY, 
 
 Of (he Otfici' of E.riH'riiiient Stcdions. 
 
 [Reprint from Yearbook of Dki'artment of A(;ricultitre for 1904.] 
 
c^A^ 
 
 SEP 28 1907 
 0. uh D. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 The corn exhibit at the St. Louis Exposition 489 
 
 Development of boys' clubs in Illinois 491 
 
 Boys' clubs in other States. 493 
 
 School fairs 494 
 
 Summary 495 
 
 III 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Plate LXVIII. Boys' exhibit of corn at the St. Louis Exposition 492 
 
 LXIX. Boys' session of Winnebago County farmers' institute, Rock- 
 ford, 111 492 
 
 LXX. Ficr. 1. — Winnebago County, 111., boys in their field of sugar 
 beets. Fig. 2. — Richland Township school fair in Keokuk 
 County, Iowa , 494 
 
 V 
 
BOYS' AGRICULTURAL CLUBS. 
 
 By Dick J. Crosby, 
 Of the Office of Experiment Stations. 
 
 THE CORN EXHIBIT AT THE ST. LOUIS EXPOSITION. 
 
 "Grown by the farmer boys of Illinois!" " Eight thousand farmer boys in contest!" 
 
 All summer long these two legends surmounted two large pyramids 
 of pure-bred corn at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition — pyramids 
 made up of 1,000 little pyramids, each containing 10 beautiful ears of 
 white or yellow corn, straight-rowed, symmetrical, uniform. The 
 exhibit was a monument alike to the industry and intelligence of 8,000 
 Illinois farmer boys and to the energy and resourcefulness of Mr. Will 
 B. Otwell, who had charge of the Illinois agricultural exhibit at St. 
 Louis, and whose helpful work among these boys during the past four 
 or live 3^ears made such an exhibit possible. A series of intensely 
 interesting events leads up to this corn-growing contest, but only a 
 brief sketch of them can be given here. 
 
 About five years ago the secretar\" of the Macoupin Count}" (111.) 
 Farmers' Institute, who had had some experience in advertising, under- 
 took to get out a large attendance of farmers for the annual institute. 
 He advertised the meeting in 13 county papers and instructed the 
 janitor of the court-house to open the doors early to accommodate the 
 crowd. On the day of the institute the attendance was limited strictly 
 to the president, the secretary, and the chaplain. "And/' says the 
 secretary, ''the chaplain offered a fervent prayer for the officers of 
 the organization. I tapped him on the shoulder afterwards and told 
 him he would oblige me b}" praying for the delinquent farmers who 
 were absent; the officers were doing everything in their power." 
 
 The next year the secretary changed his tactics. After engaging 
 the services of many noted speakers on subjects of interest to all good 
 farmers, he had a lot of gilt-edged programmes printed. These were 
 mailed, like wedding invitations, in nice square envelopes, to 500 farm- 
 ers of the county. The day of the institute arrived, the janitor had 
 the doors open earl}', and about two dozen farmers attended. The 
 officers were disgusted, the president resigned, and the secretary was 
 elected president. The latter, fortunately, was as resourceful as he 
 was persistent, and his next experiment was both original and successful. 
 
 He first wrote to leading corn growers in Iowa, Indiana, and 
 
 489 
 
490 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Illinois and procured 12 samples of first-class seed corn. He then 
 called 12 fanners into the parlors of a local bank and asked them to 
 select the variety best adapted to the soil of Macoupin County. This 
 done, several bushels of the seed corn were secured at $2 per bushel. 
 The president next solicited $40 in cash and divided it into $1 premi- 
 ums. A plow company gave a two-horse plow to be ofiered as a 
 sweepstake premium. Notices were then inserted in the county papers 
 to the effect that every boy under 18 who would send in his name and 
 address would receive a package of this seed corn — all that could be 
 mailed for 1 cent postage. The president .says: 
 
 Five hundred boys sent for the corn and began contesting for.the premiums. All 
 summer long these boj's were talking farmers' institutes (where the corn was to be 
 exhi!)ited). They were comparing notes and exchanging ideas until our institute 
 was a topic of general conversation. I decided not to advertise the institute in the 
 papers any more than just to give the dates. The farmers were politely told they 
 could stay away from the institute if they preferred. When I reached the court- 
 house on the morning of the institute there were scores of boys waiting for the doors 
 to be opened. They had their prize corn with them, some of it in boxes, some of it 
 in coffee sacks, tied up with binder twine, shoe strings, bedcord— any way, just so 
 they got it to the institute. When I called that meeting to order at the appointed 
 time I was confronted by 500 farmers. And Professor Stevenson, of Champaign, who 
 scored the corn, said he had never seen a nicer display of yellow corn. I knew I 
 had solved the problem, and so did the farmers. The boys were in evidence every- 
 where, and their presence Avas an inspiration to tlie institute. 
 
 The next year there were 1,500 farmer boys in the contest, and it 
 took $300 to provide the prizes, which consisted of a high-grade l)icy cle, 
 a three- wheel riding plow, a walking cultivator, a 10- foot windmill, a 
 fanning mill, a dou])le harrow, a 16-inch walking plow, a wa.shing 
 machine, a one-hole corn sheller, a hand plow, 2 rolling colters, a box 
 of 100 bars of soap, and 140 one-dollar premiums. 
 
 The summer that followed was a dry one, and the president of the 
 institute was fearful that the contest would not amount to much. But 
 one of the objects for which he w^as striving had already been accom- 
 plished — the farmers of the county were interested. The fathers of 
 the 1,500 boys donated the best spots on their farms for the growing 
 of this corn — the hog lots, calf pastures, clover fields — and all the time 
 the boys were studying deep and shallow cultivation and fertilizers of 
 all kinds, and were becoming more interested in farming. " so that 
 to-day there is a prevailing l)elief in this county that boys may choose 
 farming as a profession and still be as good as anybody." 
 
 When the time for the farmers' institute came there were 1.500 
 farmers in constant attendance and a display of corn which, according 
 to the judge who distributed the prizes, was finer than any he had ever 
 seen at State fairs in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, or Iowa. Mr. Otwell 
 says of this meeting: 
 
 Farmers who two years l)efore would not attend, and who boldly asserted that 
 "they had forgotten more than those speakers would ever tind out," were on the 
 
boys' agricultural clubs. 491 
 
 front seat and helping in ever}' possible way. Besides the fathers and mothers and 
 sisters and sweethearts, there were more than 300 farmer boys in attendance at this 
 institute, and with no friction and the utmost enthusiasm and good will, we closed 
 the largest and best farmers' institute I have ever attended. The corn was simply 
 immense. And so were the boys. And when I mentioned the name of the poor 
 little fellow in blue overalls, who lived on a thin, worn-out piece of white land, and 
 who had carried water all through the long summer to water his corn, and had 
 thereby been awarded the first prize (bicycle), no governor of the State of Illinois 
 ever received a heartier ovation than he. 
 
 The problem of arousing an interest in farmers' institutes and in 
 the questions discussed at them had been solved. The farmers were 
 reached through their children, and the interest thus aroused will be 
 handed down to their children's children. 
 
 When the president of the Macoupin County Farmers' Institute was 
 asked to take charge of the Illinois agricultural exhibit at the Louisiana 
 Purchase Exposition he determined that the farmer bo3"s should take 
 an active part in preparing the display. He got up a list of premiums 
 costing $3,500, printed the premium list and the rules governing the 
 contest, and mailed them to 120,000 farmer boys in Illinois. Eight 
 thousand of these boj^s sent for the sample packages of corn and went 
 to work. 
 
 The exhibit, as it was finalh' prepared and installed in the Palace of 
 Agricidture (PI. LXVIII), consisted of over 1,000 entries of ten ears 
 each. The corn was of excellent qualit}" and quite uniform in appear- 
 ance and measurement. The prizes ranged from 50 cents to $500, and 
 1,250 exhibits received awards. 
 
 Eight thousand boj's in a single State thoroughly aroused on the 
 subject of improving corn! Think what power has been set in motion! 
 And what possibilities for the accomplishment of good, especially 
 when the interest thus aroused is extended to other matters, to the 
 improvement of rural conditions generally! 
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF BOYS' CLUBS IN ILLINOIS. 
 
 And yet, the series of corn-growing contests just described is but 
 one of a number in Illinois, all developed more or less directl}^ under 
 the auspices of the State College of Agriculture, the Illinois Farmers' 
 Institute, and the county institute secretaries and county superin- 
 tendents of schools. Seed has been furnished by the college and the 
 farmers' institute, and contests have been arranged b}^ the local author- 
 ities. Packages containing 500 gi'ains of pure-bred corn were sent b}^ 
 the State Farmers' Institute to over 5,100 boys in 1901. The need of 
 local associations through which the county superintendents and secre- 
 taries could work more effectually has led to the organization of clubs 
 among the boys, usualh' by townships, with a county association of 
 clubs. Probably a dozen different counties have started the club 
 2p 
 
492 YEABBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
 
 movement, and several of these have strong and very active organiza 
 tions. In Winnebago County the (la)) membership was 425 in 1904, 
 and in Johnson County it was 535. The State superintendent of farm- 
 ers' institutes estimates that the total membership for the State is not 
 less than 2,000. 
 
 The work of the boys' clubs is not confined to growing pure-bred 
 corn, but also includes the testing of varieties of sugar beets, institute 
 work, the judging of corn, visits to leading farms, and excursions to the 
 State College of Agriculture. In thirty counties of Illinois last A'ear 
 one session of the farmers' institute was given over to the bo3^8. In 
 Winnebago County the Boys' Experiment Club has a regular place on 
 the county institute programme (PI. LXIX). Its members also meet 
 at some of the best farms in the county to stud}" the different crops, 
 examine the buildings and live stock, and see the improved machinery 
 in operation. Their experiments are something more than the grow- 
 ing of a small plat of corn, sugar beets (PI. LXX, fig. 1), or soy 
 beans; they include also the stud}^ of farm management, fertility, 
 prevalence of barren stalks and smut — all of the conditions likely to 
 affect materially the yield and quality of the crops grown. Note the 
 points brought out by one of the boys in the corn-growing experi- 
 ments in the following report to County Superintendent of Schools 
 O. J. Kern, who has developed this work in Winnebago Count}": 
 
 REPORT OF HARRY M'PARLAND. 
 
 My experimental corn was the Learning corn. I planted my prize-growing corn 
 on the 7th of May in a plat that contained 3 sc^uare rods. The soil was a black, 
 sandy loam. The gronnd had garden truck on it last year, which left it in good 
 condition for corn this year. The ground was plowed with a 16-inch plow at a depth 
 of 6 inches. I planted my corn in rows 3 feet wide, the hills being 2 feet apart. 
 The corn was up within 3 days and averaged 2 stalks to the hill. My corn had a 
 good many suckers on, but very little smut. The corn averaged 12 feet tall, many 
 stalks having 2 ears on. The work I put on my corn is as follows: 
 
 ]\larch 30, plowing one-half hour at 30 cents an hour $0. 15 
 
 ^Nlay 6, harrowing one-half hour 15 
 
 May 7, planting one-half hour 15 
 
 May 20, cultivating 15 minutes 05 
 
 June 3, hoeing corn one-half hour 10 
 
 June 23, cultivating 08 
 
 June 30, hoeing 05 
 
 September 25, husking corn ^ 10 
 
 Cost of raising corn 83 
 
 The total yield of corn was 2^ bushels. The value of the corn was $3. The gain. 
 
 was $2.17. 
 
 These Winnebago boys also have their lecture courses where, among 
 other things, they learn about corn judging, from Professor Holden, 
 of Iowa; stock feeding, from Professor Henry, of Wisconsin; birds and 
 their benefit to the farmer, from Professor Dearborn, of the Field 
 
Yearbook U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1904 
 
 Plate LXVIII. 
 
Yearbook U. S- Dept, of Agriculture, 1904. 
 
 PLATE LXIX. 
 
boys' agricultural clubs. 493 
 
 Columbian Museum; and the kind of country schools for country 
 people, from Professor Davenport, of Illinois. They have access to 
 excellent traveling; school libraries, containinj( a liberal sprinklinj^- of 
 standard aj^ricultural books, and the bulletins and other publications 
 of the State (!xperiment station and of the United States Department 
 of Agriculture, and at commencement time receive diplomas or other 
 certificates for the reading done during the year. They have been on 
 several long excursions, including two to the Illinois College of Agri- 
 culture at Urbana, and one to the lovva Agricultural College at Ames. 
 This year they go to the Wisconsin College of Agriculture at Madison. 
 At these agricultural institutions great pains is taken toshovvtht; boys 
 the magnificent equipment in buildings, apparatus, and live stock and 
 to take them over the field experiments. They come home talking 
 intelligently of high-protein corn, draft horses, and market grades of 
 beef cattle. Gradually but surely it grows upon them that it is not 
 all of farming to drudge; that there is abundant opportunity to plan, 
 study, investigate: that intelligence and culture are needed on the 
 farm, and that the proper exercise of these qualities will yield as 
 abundant returns in the country as in the city. 
 
 boys' clubs in othp:k states. 
 
 Illinois is not alone in this forward movement. Iowa, Ohio, and 
 Texas are keeping step with her in the boys' club work, and Indiana 
 and New York have taken up the boys' institute; work — the former 
 with 1.5 meetings last year and the latter with 72. Indeed, it may be 
 said that New York, with its 20,000 or more members of "Junior 
 Naturalist clubs," leads all other States in the children's club move- 
 ment. But these are nature-study clubs, quite different from agricul- 
 tural clubs, and they are for girls as well as boys. There are also 
 girls' clubs in these other States — Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, and Texas — 
 but the limits of this article will not permit a discussion of girls' clubs 
 or nature-study clubs. 
 
 In Ohio the boys' agricultural club movement was stalled about two 
 years ago by the organization of a club in Springfield township, Clarke 
 Count}', under the direction of Superintendent of Schools A. H. Gra- 
 ham. The work at this place does not differ materially from that in 
 Illinois. It includes the testing of vaneties of corn, garden vegetables, 
 and flowers, and some work with insects, wild flowers, weeds, and 
 soils. There are now 16 boys' agricultural clubs in 10 counties of 
 Ohio, with a total membership of nearly 700. These have been organ- 
 ized under the auspices of the Ohio State University, which has sent 
 out during the past year 1,012 packages of vegetable seeds, 56.5 pack- 
 ages of corn, and 1,261 packages of flower seeds, besiflles a large 
 amount of litmus paper for use in testing the acidity of soils. 
 
494 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 The Texas club movement was organized only a little over a year 
 ago in connection with the Texas Fai'mers' Congress, but the member- 
 ship of the Farmer Boys and Girls' League is now over 1,200. In 
 Iowa the first club was organized by Count}'' Superintendent of Schools 
 Cap E. Miller, at Sigourney, Keokuk County, in March, 1904. This 
 club now has a mem])ership of 335 bovs, and its first vear has been 
 one of remarkable activity and progress. It has held several meetings, 
 has made several excursions, including one to Ames and another to one 
 of the largest ranches in the State, and it has conducted a series of 
 school fairs that are worthy of brief description. 
 
 SCHOOL FAIRS. 
 
 Earl}' last fall each of the 147 school districts in Keokuk Count}^ 
 held a school fair, where the boys exhibited all sorts of fruits, vege- 
 tables, and farm crops which the}^ had grown. The best and second 
 best articles of each class were later entered at township fairs — one in 
 each of the 16 townships in the county (PI. LXX, fig. 2). In connec- 
 tion with each fair a programme was rendered consisting of talks 
 and papers on corn, potatoes,' peanuts, apples, and other fruits and 
 crops, together with recitations and musical selections. All of the 
 township fairs were attended by the county superintendent of schools 
 and the president and the secretary of the boys' club of the county, 
 the latter acting as judge of the agricultural exhibits. The first, sec- 
 ond, and third prize articles from each township fair were then exhib- 
 ited at a county school fair. This was held in the high school building 
 at Sigourney, December 24, and was attended bv over 1,00(1 people. 
 The exhibit contained more than 3,000 articles and was probablv the 
 largest collection of varied agricultural products grown by bo3\s ever 
 brought together in this country. Professor Holden and Mr. Christie, 
 of the Iowa Agricultural College, assisted in judging the agricultural 
 products, and the former conducted a corn-judging school in which all 
 of the boys took part. The programme rendered in connection with 
 the fair included music, recitations, a debate on the subject '"Resolved, 
 That Corn is more Useful than Cotton.'' and a composition contest in 
 which each graded school in the county was allowed one representative. 
 The general theme of the compositions was "An Interesting Plant," 
 each contestant presenting a paper on some particular plant. There 
 were lo compositions on corn, 3 on wheat, 3 on the tomato, and 1 or 
 2 on each of a dozen other common farm crops or fiowers. Superin- 
 tendent Cap E. Miller, who was the organizer and moving spirit in 
 all this work, .says of the fair: 
 
 It was the jjreatest educational meeting ever held in the county. The interest 
 which it created has spread in its influence to all the work of our rural schools and 
 has caused the farmers of our county to organize a farmers' institute. * * * 
 
Yearbook U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1904. 
 
 Plate LXX. 
 
 Fig. 1.— Winnebago County, III., Boys in their Field of Sugar Beets. 
 
 Fig. 2.— Richland Township School Fair in Keokuk County, Iowa. 
 
boys' agricultural clubs. 495 
 
 The school-fair movement has been self-supporting-. By means of 
 a small admission fee all expenses of the fairs and of securing- music, 
 judges, and speakers were paid and a balance of about $50 was left in 
 the club treasur}'. This is a matter of no little importance. A self- 
 supporting- enterprise, if worthy, commands greater respect than one 
 which depends upon charity or private subscription for its support. 
 And without doubt this is a worthy enterprise. Aside from the good 
 which has come to its members through their activity in organizing 
 and directing a remarkable series of educational meetings, much has 
 been accomplished toward arousing- enthusiasm for better, more whole- 
 some country life, and toward laying the foundation for a broader 
 educational movement along agricultural lines. 
 
 Laying the foundation is about all that can be hoped for in this direc- 
 tion during the next few years. It was forty years after the corner- 
 stone of collegiate agricultural education in the United States was laid 
 at the Michigan Agricultural College before the agricultural courses 
 had been carried much above the basement line. But in the past four 
 or five years the structure has gone up b}^ leaps and hounds. The col- 
 lege courses have been developed and strengthened, the work of the 
 experiment stations has been better systematized, and now greater 
 attention is being given to extending the influence of these institutions 
 beyond the bounds of the college campus. One of the direct results 
 of this great forward movement in agricultural education, the aim of 
 which is to extend agricultural education of some sort — formal or 
 informal, advanced, intermediate, or elementary — to every grade of 
 school attended by rural pupils, has been the organization of the boys' 
 agricultural clubs. These clubs, though at present somewhat crude in 
 their organization, are accomplishing much good, and are worth}' of 
 encouragement. 
 
 SUMMARY. 
 
 (1) Through their agricultural clubs the boys have been affected in 
 many ways. Individually they have been led to observe more closely, 
 to recognize good and bad qualities in the crops they have raised, and 
 in the insects, fungi, and other things affecting these crops; they have 
 met and learned to solve some of the problems in the improvement 
 of crops; they have learned that improvement in one direction is not 
 always, or even usually, accompanied by improvement in all directions; 
 they have learned the value of labor, the cost of producing crops, and 
 how to keep simple accounts with different crops; they have been 
 encouraged to read good literature, and have learned sojne of the 
 sources of agricultural literature; their views have been broadened by 
 contact with others and by visiting institutions of learning, highly 
 developed farms, and other points of interest, and, finally, the power 
 
496 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 of taking the initiative has in many cases been strong-ly developed in 
 them. As one of the direct results of the sugar-beet experiments, a 
 few of the Illinois boys will raise sugar beets this year as a commer- 
 cial venture. One sugar factory has already contracted with boj^s in 
 Winnebago County to raise 20 acres of beets. 
 
 (2) Collectively the boys have learned the value of organized effort, 
 of cooperation, and of compromise, and the social instinct has been 
 developed in them — a matter of great importance in rural districts, 
 where the isolated condition of the people has always been a great 
 drawback to progress. 
 
 (3) The influence upon the communities at large, the parents as well 
 as the children, has been wholesome. Beginning with an awakening 
 of interest in one thing — better seed corn — the communities have 
 rapidly extended their interest to other features of rural improvement, 
 with the result that in the regions affected by the boys' agricultural 
 club movement there has come about a general upward trend to the 
 thoughts and activities of the people. 
 
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