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| Book Review | Indiana Magazine of History, 103.4 | The History Cooperative
103.4  
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December, 2007
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REVIEWS

Native Soil
A History of the DeKalb County Farm Bureau

By Eric Mogren
(DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2005. Pp. xi, 288. Photographs, notes, bibliography, index. $24.95.)

In Native Soil, Eric Mogren describes how farsighted Illinois community leaders and farmers organized to improve agricultural techniques in an effort to raise rural standards of living and increase the prosperity of small-town businesses. Formed in 1912, the DeKalb Soil Improvement Association (SIA) hired a full-time farm advisor to assist local farmers in enhancing and preserving the quality of their soil. While many communities created such organizations to sponsor demonstration agents, Mogren contends that the SIA—renamed the DeKalb County Farm Bureau in 1916—was unique. Predating the 1914 Smith-Lever Act, which provided matching federal funds to hire state and county agricultural agents, the association established a tradition of local control missing from many of the groups that organized after the passage of that legislation. Ultimately, the men responsible for DeKalb's Farm Bureau did a remarkable job of serving their constituents, making a series of intelligent business decisions that gave the group a firm financial foundation. 1
      As Mogren shows, Farm Bureau leaders confronted and met a wide range of challenges during the organization's first seventy years. After raising an initial $10,000, the group struggled financially. They reluctantly applied for federal funds in 1914 but retained autonomy. . . .
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