SUCCESS ANTI-CLOG WEEDER.
By Farmers’ Clubs we mean those organizations of farmers, governed by constitutions and by-laws, who meet at stated times for the discussion of topics connected with the improvement of their calling. There are no statistics available from which can be gathered the extent of this movement, but Ohio reports fifty clubs and has formed a state organization. In Michigan, where the clubs are organized on a different basis, 30,000 members are reported; they have also formed a state organization, which was attended by 200 delegates at the last meeting. Indiana is but little, if any, behind these two States, and the club idea is rapidly spreading through the Northern States. There are two forms of these clubs, one of which limits the membership to twelve families, and the meetings are all held at the homes of the members, one each month. The advantages of this plan are several. First, with the club thus limited, the horses can be stabled and cared for during inclement weather of winter. Second, the wives need prepare but one meal in the year for the club; while with the large club it is necessary that each should contribute to a basket dinner for every meeting, which often causes as much trouble as to prepare the meal for the entire club once a year. Third, the attendance is sure to be more regular in the small club, and one condition of membership is that every member shall be present at each meeting unless providentially detained. Fourth, with a club of this size every member can take part in the discussion, and there will be less danger of a few “talkers” monopolizing the time. Fifth, the social features in the small club are very much better than in the large. Most of the clubs in Ohio and Indiana are organized on this basis, while in Michigan it is probable that most of the clubs have an unlimited membership. The objection is sometimes urged that the small club seems selfish, but as any twelve or even six families are at liberty to organize a club this objection is not valid.
As many farmers who would like to organize may not be able to find a form of constitution and by-laws, it seems proper to give one here.
Preamble.
Recognizing the fact that farmers need an opportunity to compare methods and to cultivate their social qualities, and considering that “As iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend,” in order that we may be mutually helpful to each other in matters relating to husbandry, home comfort, and economy, we do form ourselves into an association known as the —— Farmers’ Club [fill the blank with the name you wish to use for your club], and adopt for our government the following:—
Constitution.
Article 1. The officers shall be President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Librarian, who shall be elected annually in November, and assume their duties in January of the following year.
Article 2. The duties of these officers shall be such as pertain to the offices in other organizations and are indicated by the name of the office.
Article 3. The active members of this club shall be engaged in agricultural pursuits, but honorary members may be elected by unanimous vote. Honorary members are not obliged to attend all the meetings, but will be welcomed to any.
Article 4. Application for membership must be submitted at the meeting previous to their being balloted for, and members will be admitted on receiving a two-thirds vote by ballot; but the membership shall be limited to twelve families.
Article 5. Amendments may be made at any regular meeting by a two-thirds vote of the active members.
By-laws.
1. The club shall meet at the residence of one of the members on the third Thursday of each month, at ten o’clock, invitations to which shall be limited to the hostess of the day.
2. The club shall be called to order by the president, after an hour spent in social intercourse, and the order of exercises shall be as follows:—
a. Reading and approving minutes of last meeting.
b. Monthly record of current events.
c. Selections, recitations, essays.
d. Adjournment for dinner and social intercourse until two o’clock.
e. Discussion; so conducted as to avoid all questions of politics and theology.
f. Question drawer.
g. Miscellaneous business.
In order that the work of the club may be systematic and the time fully occupied, a programme covering the entire year is prepared and printed so as to be ready for distribution at the December meeting of each year. That the reader may understand the working of this plan, a few topics will be given, taken from the programme of the club of which the writer is a member:—
January.
The club will meet at the home of Mr. ........
Thursday, the 19th.
Selection ....................... Mrs. ........
Paper ........................... Mr. .........Topic: A review of the previous year.
Each member will give in writing a statement of profits and losses for the year under the following heads:—
1. General crops grown and acreage and yield thereof.
2. What special crops have been raised.
3. Stock raised or handled.
4. What experiments have been made on the farm.
5. What losses of stock, or crops, and the cause thereof.June.
The club will meet at the home of Mr. ........
Thursday, the 15th.
Selection ...................... Mrs. ........
Paper: “Hindrances to sheep raising and how to avoid them.” Mr. .........Topic: The Farmer’s Barn.
1. Relative size to farm.
2. Location and ground plan.
3. Arrangement of stabling, feeding, and water conveniences.
4. Plan for saving manure.
Either a gentleman or a lady is appointed to open each topic, after which the subject is opened for question or discussion by any member of the club. During one month of the summer, usually July or August, a picnic takes the place of the regular meeting, at which a basket dinner is served.
Farmers’ institutes are, in the best sense of the word, a farmers’ school, and while it is less than twenty years since their first organization, nearly all of the States, at least in the North, are conducting them to a greater or less extent. As Ohio claims the honor of inaugurating this movement, and the writer is more familiar with the plan of organization and the work of institutes in that State than any other, some facts concerning them will be given. The first attempt to teach the farmers by lecture courses was made late in the seventies at the Ohio State Agricultural College, when a course of eighty lectures on subjects connected with farm interests were given, all of them by professors of the college. This first course occupied five weeks; and as it was found that but a limited number of farmers could be induced to leave their homes and care of their stock in the winter, and that the attendance was only about forty, the next two years the course was shortened in hopes that a larger attendance might result, but such was not the case. Then some one suggested, “If the farmers will not come to the lectures, why not take the lectures to the farmers?” and the outcome of this suggestion has been a wonderful success; the State holding three hundred institutes in the winter of 1897 and 1898, under a law providing a fund for that purpose, and over a hundred independent institutes in addition, by which is meant institutes in which the local organization pays its own expenses and chooses its own lecturers and subjects.
The work in most of our States is thoroughly organized, a fund provided to meet the expenses of the work, placed in some States under the charge of the Secretary of Agriculture, and in others in charge of a superintendent of institutes. The farmers have met this effort for their improvement with great enthusiasm, and the attendance is usually limited by the size of the hall provided. All partisan and sectarian questions are rigorously excluded from the discussions. A bulletin is issued in the fall, which gives the names of a large corps of lecturers and a list of subjects, and these are sent to the officers of the local organizations, from which they can select such topics as they wish discussed. Half of the time of each session is allotted to the state lecturers, while local talent is expected to fill the other half. The greatest possible freedom is allowed in asking questions and discussing the work of the speakers, and no other educational influence which has come to the farmer has equaled that offered by these meetings. At the close of each year the best papers and discussions are printed in a bulletin for free distribution among the farmers, and are given out at the meeting the ensuing year, or are mailed from the office of the Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture on application.
The Grange was organized at Washington, D. C., in 1807, but existed only on paper until January, 1873, when the first meeting of the National Grange convened at Georgetown, D. C., with delegates from ten States. It was started as a secret society, with a ritual and degrees, and seemed to catch the popular fancy among the farmers. At the meeting of the National Grange in 1874, thirty-two States were represented.
Probably no other organization has made so rapid a growth as this. A large element, however, of the membership was attracted to it by the rallying cry of “Down with the middleman!” and had little or no conception of its educational possibilities. Little country stores with very small capital, and managed by men with no business training, sprang up at every cross-road, which, contrary to the expectation of their founders, did not save money, but resulted in some valuable business education for which a good tuition fee was paid. The reaction which set in made it seem for a time as though the entire order would disintegrate; but fortunately there were wise leaders who had caught the true idea, that the organization must be kept on an educational basis to save it from extinction, and through their efforts it has become a power for good in most localities, and has been of great service to the farmers. County, state, and national societies have been organized, and no other large bodies of farmers can so quickly and thoroughly coöperate in measures pertaining to the interests of the farmer as those belonging to this order.
