in farming, so that they will not be too eager to leave the farm for the allurements of the cities, a boys' agricultural encampment at the State Fair at Fargo has been arranged as an annual attraction. The first of these encampments was held in July, 1912. Two boys from each county in the state were chosen by representatives of the Better Farming Association, the County Superintendents of Schools and the Chairmen of the Boards of County Commissioners. The boys paid each $5 for their meals and incidental expenses, the State Fair Association providing cots, blankets, and tents. During the time they were in camp they were given a taste taught, but on what he saw at the State Fair. Fifty dollars in cash prizes was divided among the boys for the best reports. These youngsters and the hundred others who will come to future encampments annually, are the ones to whom North Dakota and the Better Farming Association are looking for really permanent results. The first steps toward bettering social conditions in farm life were taken in the spring of 1912, when twenty-seven farmers' clubs were organized in the different counties through the activity of the Association's field agents, and before the crop season was well under way many more had DEMONSTRATION FIELD OF ALFALFA AND CORN SUPERVISED BY THE FIELD AGENTS AND GROWN BY THE OWNER OF THE LANDA PROOF THAT THE of military discipline, some physical training under a Y. M. C. A. physical director, a fair amount of agricultural instruction by teachers from the North Dakota Agricultural College and the Better Farming Association, and a tremendous amount of fun. Poultry, dairy products, farm crops, livestock diseases, and farm machinery and buildings were the subjects in which practical instruction was given. Moving pictures, showing the manufacture of steel and wire, and other interesting things to the farm boy were included as a part of the course of instruction, and at the close every boy was required to make a report, not only on what he had been been organized by the farmers themselves. It is the expectation of the Association that at least five hundred of these farmers' clubs, which include in their memberships the entire families, will be organized before the summer of 1913, and that, through these clubs, social centres will be created, which will furnish a means not only for social intercourse but for community cooperation along many lines and the education of the farmer and the farmer's wife in sanitation, domestic economy, and better living conditions generally. Besides reaching the farmers of North Dakota through personal contact, the Association has begun the publication of THIS MEANS MORE PROFITS, AN INCREASING FERTILITY OF THE SOIL, PROSPERITY AND PLENTY OF NEIGHBORS FOR THE FARMER, AND THEREFORE BUSINESS FOR THE BANKS AND A RICH MARKET FOR THE MANUFACTURER. THIS CONDITION IS WHAT THE BETTER FARMING ASSOCIATION OF NORTH DAKOTA IS WORKING FOR THROUGH ITS FARM DEMONSTRATION WORK. a series of monthly press bulletins that deserve a circulation outside of the state. 'Better Seed," the first of these tracts of the new farming gospel, is a masterpiece of simplicity and practical information on this vital subject. "Alfalfa," "Cultivation of the Corn Crop," and "Hog Pastures" embody the agricultural wisdom of the colleges with the experience of the best farmers. The press of the state A FIELD AGENT AND A FARMER MOST OF THE $86,000 A YEAR WHICH THE BETTER FARMING ASSOCIATION HAS TO SPEND IS SPENT IN GETTING THE FACTS OF FARMING DIRECTLY TO THE FARMER generally reprints these bulletins and reports enthusiastically and intelligently the work of the Association's field agents. Occasionally some farmer of the "mossback" type they have "moss-backs" in North Dakota as everywhere else writes a letter to the editor of his local weekly ridiculing the notion that "Eastern experts" can teach the horny-handed tillers of the North Dakota soil anything new. The appearance of such a letter is the invariable signal for a score of replies, not from the Association, whose men take no part in such controversies, but from farmers who write to tell of the benefits they have already received from the advice and help of the scorned "experts." Business men and public-spirited citizens in several other Northwestern states are planning similar better farming associations for their own states. Both Iowa and Illinois have made tempting offers to Tom Cooper to take the leadership of the work in those states, and some of his field agents are being urged to accept larger salaries from other communities. "Just to illustrate what could be done with more capital intelligently used in farming," Tom Cooper said, as we talked over the work of the Association last June, "take the six eastern counties of North Dakota - the 'Red River counties.' I worked for years in the Red River counties on the Minnesota side of the line and know what they are capable of. In these six counties there is now employed in farming a capital of approximately $210,000,000, from which the annual production is $40,000,000 at an annual ex pense of about $7,000,000. To develop the farms of these counties to higher productive capacity would require additional fencing, stocking, the purchase of more machinery, and a general readjustment of methods. Say these things would require $35,000,000 additional capital, which at 6 per cent. would cost $2,000,000 year. The better farming methods would involve an added annual expense of about $4,000,000. But out of this would come an increase of at least $15,000,000 in the value of the annual product, and that does not represent the best that these lands are capable of. In other words, by spending $6,100,000 intelligently, North "Such results are entirely practicable. Land no better than the average land in North Dakota is producing in Minnesota an average of $15 an acre for the entire farm, both improved and unimproved land. In other words, farming methods now in use in North Dakota are less than 50 per cent. efficient, and we are trying to raise the standard of efficiency. We are trying to show the farmers that, in order to earn at least $200,000,000 a year above expenses instead of the meagre $100,000,000 or so which they clear now, they need only to make use of the present undeveloped resources of soil and climate; to practise rotation of crops, the production of alfalfa, THE BETTER FARMING ASSOCIATION ORGANIZED 27 OF THESE CLUBS. THEY ARE GROWING IN NUMBER SO THAT IT IS EXPECTED THAT THERE Dakota can get an extra $15,000,000 or a good deal more than 100 per cent profit. "Many agricultural states produce much larger proportionate returns than North Dakota. The average value per acre of all cereals, according to the census was $12.55. If we could get only as great an income as that from the entire improved area of farm lands, we should produce more than $260,000,000 a year; and if we got that much per acre from the entire acreage now in farms we should have $425,000,000 and more in annual income. And there would still be one third and more of the entire state, not now classed as farm land, to be heard from. WILL BE 500 BY THE SUMMER OF 1913 corn, and potatoes; and to go in for live stock, dairying, and poultry." "How long is it going to take to get these results?" I asked. "I don't know, but I'm enlisted for the war," was Tom Cooper's characteristic reply. "I like to think of it as a war a war for the people's daily bread; for better living and for better men and women. For that's what it comes to in the long run. It isn't the corn crop or the potato crop that really counts it's the man crop. But the best way to improve the man crop is to improve the other crops first. The man crop is what we are fighting for." THE ZEPPELIN SHIPS THAT NEVER LOST A PASSENGER - LUXURIES OF AIR TRAVEL O UT of the bed of fog, long blades of flame shot up in a vain attempt to reach and destroy us. Then a breeze momentarily swept the fog away, and beneath were revealed, like so many volcano craters, the belching, burning chimneys of Düsseldorf's industrial centre. For a few seconds only did this inferno flash picturesquely below us. Then we were out over the open Westphalian country. Above, the stars were paling in the morning twilight, while off on either side was a broad panorama of fairy-land. Through the thinning fog could be caught glimpses of ghost-houses. Fields took on the appearance of misty seas lashing and curling upon frowning shores formed by a wide stretch of forest. Back of that a church spire took form, then another and another, and just as the sun came to scatter the earth vapors, the pretty village of Dülmen spread its beauties before us. The air trip from Düsseldorf to Berlin on the Viktoria Luise had been booked more than a month in advance by cable from New York. And it was well that the precaution had been taken, for the demand for places on the giant Zeppelin flyer is far beyond the airship's capacity. It would seem as though all Germany is clamoring for an opportunity to spend its money in the air. The Viktoria Luise was advertised to leave Düsseldorf at 4:30 o'clock in the morning, and though I arrived at the airship dock a full hour before that time I found it a place of life and energy. The pilot was making a careful inspection of the great ship while it still rode at anchor within its shed. Members of the crew were testing the motors and propellers, while others were climbing through the upper structure to see that everything was right and tight. After the arrival of my fellow passengers, who numbered twenty-three, the automatic docking apparatus drew the ship into the open, and as we entered the cabin there was not one of us who did not show evidences of a fever of excitement. Air was pumped into the last ballonet at the stern and the Viktoria Luise tilted her nose at a rather sharp angle toward the sky. So nicely balanced was the ship between lift and dead weight, that the driving power of the motors was required to send her upward like an aeroplane. As soon as a satisfactory level was reached the air was discharged, and we assumed a perfectly level position. A Zeppelin airship leaves the earth with none of the balloon's soaring motion. It is just like a Pullman train, started without perceptible jar and kept in motion upon a perfect road bed, perfect track, and perfect wheels. We glided up into a southeast wind, and the low-hanging moon showed that we were speeding almost due northward. Beneath us the fog added to the darkness, and the flames, which I have mentioned, gave to the earth an evil appearance. Although we were at a safe height it was pleasant to get out over the open country and away from the fires that burned under Düsseldorf's melting pot. Leaving Dülmen behind, the northern foothills of the Teutoburger Wald stretched across our course. All three motors were running, though not, I was told, at top |