The farmers' institutions — the county Farm Bureau from 1911, the extension service, and the empty chairs

1911–1953 · THE INSTITUTIONS IN A ROW

St. Joseph County's farmers organized before the state did, and the county bureau's own paper preserves the dates. The Farm News of St. Joseph County, the bureau's paper, in its June 1953 retrospective, traced the organization to a meeting of 22 farmers on October 14, 1911, with the St. Joseph County Farm Bureau organized in March 1913 — among the earliest county bureaus in Indiana, six years before the state federation (the Indiana Farm Bureau, organized March 25, 1919, in the state frame the county's other builds carry). The same retrospective seats the county's first county agent — named in its text as John S., the surname unrecovered in the copy reached — in office 1911 to 1918 — extension work arriving with the bureau movement itself — and the bureau's marketing work beginning with W. C. Harder's chairmanship in 1920. Lincoln Township's farmers stood inside that county organization from its start; no township-level bureau, grange or farmers' institute is named for Lincoln in the record read. The Grange's chair prints empty here — no Patrons of Husbandry lodge is named for the township in any source read (GAP-W6-17) — and the cooperative chair prints with its one hard fact: no farmers' cooperative elevator or co-op company is named for Walkerton in any source read, in a state whose Farm Bureau cooperative association was serving 101 locally owned cooperative elevators by 1955 (the Businesses file carries the elevator test whole). The county fair — the institution in which Lincoln Township's farmers exhibited — is the St.Tribune's fair reporting as settlers. The market line closes in the present tense: the farm market institution of the township's modern record is the consignment auction — a three-day farm and equipment consignment auction runs at Walkerton in the current listings — the depot market of 1880 become a sale ring, at listing strength.

Sources:

1. The Farm News of St. Joseph County, June 1953, Farm Bureau retrospective (SJCPL Michiana Memory): the October 14, 1911 meeting of 22 farmers; the March 1913 organization; the first county agent's tenure, 1911–1918; the 1920 marketing chairmanship. The retrospective's full text is the settler for its own garbled lines.
2. U.S. Farmer Cooperative Service, Handbook on Major Regional Farm Supply Cooperatives, 1954 and 1955 (the Indiana Farm Bureau Cooperative Association's 101 locally owned elevators, state frame).
3. GoToAuction listing, Walkerton farm and equipment consignment auction (the modern market institution, at listing strength).