President M. L. Burton Scores Big; Better Farming Address Is Inspiring.

President M. L. Burton of the University of Minnesota made his first appearance in Stillwater Thursday afternoon when he spoke at the annual meeting of the Better Farming Association.

His address was a splendid one, he talked for 55 minutes in his characteristic rapid style, and made a deep impression on all who heard him.

It was unfortunate that the crowd was so small, the coming in of the teachers and high school students helped things out considerably, but here was a big address by a big man and a small crowd to hear it.

Frank Crippen was elected president of the organization, and J. E. Gillespie was elected secretary. Mr. Crippen is a rising young farmer from Cottage Grove, just the sort of man the association needs to make it a bigger success than ever.

J. E. Gillespie deserves great credit for his work for the Better Farming association. He has worked long and hard to make it successful; he has been largely responsible for its financial success. He served as president from January to September but it was his splendid work as secretary that has put the association to the front, and we are glad to state that he is back in his old post, full of enthusiasm and pep.

One feature of the meeting was County Agent A. R. Leonard's report showing the work done by his office from Dec. 1 to Sept. 1, 1917. This included 1841 letters written; 16,537 circulars sent out; 304 bulletins; 175 newspaper articles written; 1441 telephone calls, 1,659 office calls; 538 farm visits; 98 meetings held with an attendance of 9,230. He traveled 5,469 miles by rail; 3,875 by auto and 252 by team, together with a lot of other important work of organization of various associations. It was comprehensive and showed what a grand good work he is doing for the farmers of Washington county.