The Cavalcade of America presented by DuPont. This evening the DuPont Cavalcade presents a story dealing with an organization that has contributed greatly to American agriculture. Founded at the close of the last century, the 4-H clubs have instilled into the hearts of boys and girls in our rural sections a deep realization of the opportunities awaiting them as the farmers of tomorrow and taught them the beneficial results of more scientific farming. 4-H club members also are aiding in the task of restoring and conserving America's wildlife. As a special feature of tonight's broadcast, at the close of our radio drama, you will hear from a man who is well informed about the great changes taking place on American farms today. Among other questions, we shall ask him to tell how research chemists are cooperating with farmers to produce better things for better living through chemistry. As an overture, Don Voorhees and the DuPont Cavalcade Orchestra play What's Good About Goodnight from Jerome Kern's new motion picture, The Joy of Living. The DuPont Cavalcade moves forward. A farm in the Midwest, the day has been windless and fiery hop under a scorching sun. Acre after acre of frairy cornfields lie blistered to a crisp. Trees rise like ghosts out of the dry earth, dismally etched in the dust like. The frail little homestead, the ramshackle barn, the sagging corn crib, the clattering creek of the old pasture gate as a farmer boy drives a team into the barnyard. Whoa, whoa boy, whoa, whoa. Hello Pa, what are you and Sis doing out here at the gate? Thought you'd be over at the house washing up for supper. We already have Alan, we're waiting for you. Sis and I thought we'd come down here and meet you while Ma's getting supper ready. How did everything look out in the north today Alan? Same as usual, crops won't be any good this year. It ain't the lack of rain, it's the cinch bugs and if it ain't the cinch bugs, it's the grasshoppers. It ain't the grasshoppers. Well, never mind, I suppose we should be glad we got the land, same as my father and grandfather had it. What good does it do us? I wish we'd have some rain. Yeah, anything to break this drought? Well Alan, you'd better wash up if you're going to take Lucille to that dance over in Hammond tonight. Going to a dance won't help us get better crops. Maybe you need a little fun once in a while son. We won't get anything near a decent yield this year Pa, what's the use? There'll be more years coming Alan. Listen Pa, I'm fed up living on a farm. Alan! What's that son? I'm fed up I said. When a fella's out there in those fields by himself all day, well he gets to do a lot of thinking. He gets to seeing himself grow old, still sitting on that cultivator. Well none of that for me. I always figured this farm would belong to you someday. Oh Alan's tired. That's all Pa, he doesn't mean that. I do mean it and I mean a whole lot more. I've been reading a lot lately about engineers and scientists who really do something. All we do is plant the seed and trust to luck it'll grow. But listen Alan. No it's no use Pa. I'm through with farming. After the dance in Hammond tonight I'm heading for Peoria or Chicago. And as far as the farm's concerned the chinch bugs and the grasshoppers can fight it out among themselves. The town of Hammond is a few miles down the oil road. There is a gas station, a general store, a church, a bank and a grain elevator. One or two cars are parked on the main street. In the heat of a suffocating summer night most people who live in Hammond sit listlessly on their porches watching the flickering of innumerable lightning bugs. The young folks and the boys and girls of neighboring farms gather gaily at the dance pavilion in the park. Do you mind if we stop dancing Lucille? Have a hard day? Terrible. Well let's go over to the side. All right. Oh excuse me. Sure Alan go ahead. Thank you. You've been acting so funny tonight Alan. Anything wrong? Well let's say it's the heat. Well this isn't the first time it's been hot in Hammond. Never been like this before. You like living on a farm Lucille? Yes. Why do you ask? Because I don't. Alan. What do we get out of it anyway? Well posses we get whatever we put into it. Yeah. Let's the pests get there first. Believe me I've put plenty into it. I tell you I'd rather do something bigger than run in a farm. Like being a scientist. Oh you don't fool me with that kind of talk. You should be proud you've got a farm. You ever ride a cultivator all day? For a quarter of a mile down a field? All you have to do when you get to the end of the furrow is to turn around and come back again. All day long. Day in and day out. Well what do you want to do? I'm going to leave. Alan. Please. Oh don't do anything you might regret later on. We were both born on farms. We've got them. And if you and I Alan. Say come on Lucille how about a dance? Oh hello Bill why sure. If Alan doesn't mind. No no go ahead Bill it's all right. Thanks a lot Alan. I'll meet you right after this dance Alan. All right Lucille. I'll see you later. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. All right Lucille. Hey Alan. Come over here a minute will you? Yeah I'll be right over Tom. What's the matter? Oh how come you're not dancing? Oh Bill's dancing with Lucille now. I haven't seen you doing much dancing yourself tonight. Why not? Well I got in an argument with some of the boys here. Yeah? Say maybe you could help us? Yeah. Hello Alan. Hello. What's it all about? Well Tom was trying to tell us a pure strain of hogs could be bred in this district. We say it can't. I thought they'd put it up to you, Alan. We all think you've got some good ideas about farming. Yeah, how about that? I guess it could be done all right. See, what did I tell you? You know, it's all very well to talk about it, Alan, but it's another thing to do it. If I wanted to do it, I could, all right? I don't see why not, fellas. And if anyone could raise a purebred strain of hogs in this district, think how much better pork we'd get around here. It would be an experiment, all right. So is that new insecticide when it came out. But it sure gets rid of the pests now, though. Remember how some of us laughed when the 4-H agent told us about scientific farming? Yeah, I remember. Yeah. Yeah, I'll tell you. Looks like the dance is over. Yeah. Fig, you should better find Lucille, Alan. Oh, she said she'd meet me. She'll be over here in a minute. Well, we've got to be getting home. And don't forget the 4-H meeting tomorrow night, Tom. All right, long. Good night, fellas. Night, Tom. Night. Good night. Night. Night. Hey, Tom, did you mean it when you said that the 4-H clubs really teach you about scientific farming? Sure. Lucille could have told you about that. She's a member. See, you never did join the club. Why not? Well, I always knew about the clubs. But I never had any idea that there was actually anything scientific about them. Neither did I until I became a member. But I found out that farm methods change all the time. And science is getting to play an important part in farming. Alan, I think it's time we were going home. Oh, hello, Tom. Hello, Lucille. Say, you're coming to the meeting tomorrow night? Of course I am. I've got to make a report. Well, listen, why don't you get Alan to come, too? Well, I'm not a member. Oh, I'll try, Tom. Maybe he will. All right. I'll see you tomorrow then. Good night. Good night. Hey, if you think I'm going to a meeting. What were you and Tom talking about, Alan? Oh, about raising a purebred strain of hogs in this district. Tom's pretty serious about farming. He calls himself a scientific farmer ever since he joined the 4-H. Yeah, we got to talking about that, too. Say, Lucille, you ought to know. Do you learn anything about scientific farming in the club? Oh, certainly. Why don't you insist come to the meeting tomorrow night, Alan? You'll find out much more about it then. Oh, I like that idea of science in the farm. All right. We'll come just to see what it's all about. But remember what I told you. I really am going to leave the farm, Lucille. My mind's made up. Oh, Alan. Oh, listen. Did you hear that? It's going to rain. We'll be soaked before we get home. Oh, the first rain in months. Oh, just what the crops mean. Oh, there you are, thinking about the crops instead of my new dress. Well, talk all you want about going away. You're a farmer at heart, Alan. In a drought season, under the relentless dazzle of the sun that burns as hottest fire, farm life is motionless and silent, awaiting the drenching relief of cooling rainstorms that come all too seldom. Then everything revives again as the showers drum upon red vines, patter in the fields, and sloshes in the metal brooks. So on through that night, and the following day, rain swept the farmlands. And in the evening, Alan and his sister arrive at an old country schoolhouse where the 4H club meeting is held. If we'd only hired a little, we wouldn't be so late. There are quite a few here, aren't there? Oh, Pop Lutz is up there on the platform with Tom. I wonder what he is doing here. He's about the oldest farmer in the district. Yeah. Oh, let's sit here. Well, I'll sure be glad to make a report to the county next week. Well, now, we've only got to hear from two more members tonight, and then we'll have Pop Lutz say a few words. All right. Now, first, what have you been doing, Rod? Well, I've been pretty busy lately. Last week, I went over to Springfield to see those new cellar glass poultry houses. They're just a thing from my white Wyandotte chickens. How are the chicks coming, Rod? Oh, fine. I've been keeping a record of feeding, watering, and culling the flock. I'm planning to enter my best 10s at the next county fair. All right, fine. Thanks very much. Well, now, that leaves only one member we haven't heard from tonight, Lucille. Lucille? I didn't know she was doing anything in this kind of work. Well, I guess Lucille takes this business pretty seriously. I wanted to tell you about the small garden I have next to our milk house on the farm. The green vegetables and the potatoes and the tomatoes are coming along fine. What I'd like to do is can about 200 quarters of them for the family this winter. Well, good for you, Lucille. All right. I mean, look at you. You were doing a good garden, weren't you? Yeah, but look what Rod's doing. Those cellar glass hen houses are pretty nice at that. Well, Pop, everybody wants to hear from you. I guess you'll have to close the meeting for us. All right, Tom. You know, it's good for an old farmer like me to hear about. A little louder. Louder? All right, yes. You know, it's good for an old farmer like me to hear about the fine work you young farmers are doing. Our country doesn't have to worry about the future of farming, long as the clubs make boys and girls take it seriously. I wish there had been something like the 4H for me when I was a boy. I, well, I guess that's about all I got to say, Tom. All right, thanks very much, Pop. All right, meeting adjourned. Oh, hello, Alan. Oh, too bad you couldn't have got here earlier. I'm glad you came. Hello, Alan. Hello there, Pop. Say, Pop, Alan never did join the club. Why, I hadn't thought of you not being in the club, Alan. The age limit runs from 10 to 20. You're about 17, aren't you? 18. Well, seems to me you've got to admit the young folks around here are doing pretty good work on their farms. Well, they take farming seriously, Pop. I don't. Oh, what do you mean, Alan? Well, I didn't tell you last night, Tom. I'm leaving the farm to be a scientist. You better think about that, Alan. Well, I thought it over. Well, the club showed me how I could be both a farmer and a scientist. We learn a lot as we grow older, Alan. I guess you might call it science at that, though. Oh, but here, read this booklet before you make up your mind. Scientific farming, huh? Yep. All right, Pop, I will. It's a serious question, boy, leaving the farm. You better think it over. The next day dawns bright and hot. All over the vast stretches of farmland, tiny wisps of vapor rise from the freshly dampened earth after the rainfall, and the sun burns again in the sky. Alan's father and mother are sitting dejectedly on the porch steps. It's going to be the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life, Martha. What'll the children think about it? Sis will probably be pretty upset. She always did love the farm. Alan's different. He said the other night he wasn't going to be a farmer. So I don't imagine he'll mind as much when I tell him. Do you think we really have to let the farm go? Looks that way, Martha. Grasshoppers ate up most of the crop. Can't fight an army of pests. When I think of it, though, how you and me got married and came here, how proud you were of the farm, belonging as it did to your grandfather and your own pa, and how we worked from sun up to sunset, you and me, both riding plows in different fields. There was no one but us then. Yeah, you worked like a man, Martha, all the time. Yeah, and we raised the children here. I tell you, it would be hard to give up the farm. It was all we had when we started out together. Somehow I thought we'd always live here. I know, Martha. Well, Mom. Hello, son. Pa, do you think a fella could raise a purebred strain of hogs in this district? Sure would make the quality of pork a lot better, wouldn't it? Yeah, I guess it would then. You and sis came home pretty late last night. Where were you, Alan? Oh, we were over at a meeting in the schoolhouse. I've been doing a lot of thinking during the night, Pa. Pop Lutz gave me one of the 4-H Club's booklets to read. I tried to get you to join that club a long time ago, Alan, but you never seemed to care much about it. Yeah, I know. Well, it don't make much difference now, son. I think I'll have to sell the farm. Give up the farm? Why, Pa? Pests got most of the crop. Anyway, you said you'd rather be a scientist than a farmer. Ain't no use trying to keep the farm if my own son don't want it. Well, I guess I was upset or something the other night. What do you mean? Well, after I read that booklet, I got to figuring how much science and farming go hand in hand. Last night, I thought how much the farm means to you and more, what it must have meant to your Pa, too. Yes, son? And, well, I hope you'd forget what I said. You see, I could join the club, find out the scientific ways of making the crops we have better. And don't give up the farm, Pa. You want to stay, then? I'll stay, Pa. Well, a four-h club work sounds like a mighty good opportunity for a boy. Well, sure it is. And, well, I'd like to try and raise that purebred strain of hog, too. You know, they give prizes for things like that. Yeah, of course. If we could save some of the crop, we mightn't have to sell the farm. All right, son, we'll see what we can do. Good. Well, I'll see you later. Where are you going, Alan? Out in the North 80. There's plenty of work to do. Alan mounts the cultivator and drives his team slowly out into the richness of the prairies. Swiftly downward cut the discs of his cultivator and the deep black earth forms and furrows beneath him. As the summer passed, the boy faithfully did his chores and in his spare moments devoted his time to various aspects of scientific farming. Under the direction of his club's county agent, Alan attempted to raise a purebred strain of hogs in his district. The following year, at the great four-h club convention in Chicago, members of the four-h club convention, for the past few days, we've heard from boys and girls from every state in the union. They've told us about the work of their clubs in home economics, in agriculture, and in leisure time. Now, I want to introduce the young man, Alan Williams from Hammond, Illinois. Alan represents his club at the convention. And I think what he has to say will interest you. Alan, will you step right up here, please? Come right along. I really am proud to be here today as representative from my district. You see, I didn't join the four-h until last year. I knew about it, but I thought I wanted to give up farming and become a scientist. And then I found out that I had a chance to be both a farmer and a scientist, so I became a member. I'm experimenting and trying to raise a purebred strain of hogs in our district. Haven't succeeded yet, but if I do, it'll help the quality of our livestock. Haven't won any prizes like a lot of you here today, but in the four-h, at least I found myself, and I'm grateful for that. I just wanted you to hear from Alan, because I feel the work he is doing is typical of the spirit of the movement everywhere. During this convention of boys and girls from all sections of our country, the widespread work of the clubs has been reviewed. Let us take away the aims of the movement when we leave the convention today. A strong sense of responsibility as future farmers and citizens, and the value of scientific research in farming. The convention will adjourn with all the members present rising and giving the four-h pledge. I pledge my head to clearer thinking, my heart to greater loyalty. My hand to larger service, my health to better living, for my club, my community, and my country. In helping a boy like Alan discover himself, the four-h clubs have developed an enterprising and beneficial spirit among the boys and girls on the farms in our country. Started in Illinois by Will Atwell in 1899 at a meeting of the Farmers Institute, the four-h clubs now number over one million boys and girls in rural communities in the United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. For their great work in fostering better farms and farmers in America today, DuPont salutes the four-h club movement in the cavalcade of America. As an appropriate conclusion to our four-h broadcast, we are pleased to present this evening Mr. L.F. Livingston, manager of the DuPont Company's Agricultural Extension Division. Mr. Livingston, just what does the word extension mean in the name of your division? It means that we extend or bring to the farmer the latest information on new products and new methods developed in the DuPont Company's laboratory. These discoveries help farmers to reduce production costs, raise the quality of their crops, and give them more comfortable and attractive surroundings in which to live. We help the farmer to put the new products developed through research into practical use. Well just how does chemistry cut the farmer's losses and help him raise better crops, Mr. Livingston? Insects, plant diseases, and weeds cost the farmer over six billion dollars each year. Research chemists in industry are able to help the farmer in his battle against these pests. For this purpose, the DuPont Company maintains a well-equipped pest control research laboratory in Wilmington. What do they do at that research laboratory, Mr. Livingston? Among other things, they make thousands of experimental dusts and sprays to protect crops. They even raise their own pests in special chambers and incubators to find out how these compounds work. To test fly spray mixtures, for instance, they breed millions of house flies. They even have a greenhouse where they grow the kind of plants they are trying to protect. But pest control work is only one of the ways that chemistry aids the farmer, isn't it, Mr. Livingston? Yes, indeed. Chemistry is important to agriculture in lots of ways. Chemists also provide fertilizers for the soil, paste to protect farm buildings and machinery, ultraviolet window material for poultry houses, and dynamite for such things as clearing fields, planting trees, even blasting duck ponds. And there's another thing few people realize. Chemistry is one of the American farmers' best customers. You mean the use of agricultural crops as raw materials and making industrial products, the farm-commergic idea? Right. The list of materials the industry buys from the farmer gets bigger every year as chemists make new discoveries. Like corn, for instance, more than 100 industrial uses have been developed for corn, ranging from glycerin for industrial explosives to carbon dioxide used in making dry ice. Cotton is used in making rayon, coated fabrics, plastics, photographic film and finishes. Turpentine obtained from southern pine trees is based on synthetic camphor. Various vegetable oils find many uses, especially in the paint and varnish industry, as, for instance, the oil from soybeans, at present one of the three major crops in the central western part of our country. Yes, indeed. The industry is turning to the farm for more and more of its raw materials. The DuPont Agricultural Extension Division brings the farmer and the DuPont chemist closer together. Thus, the farmer benefits, the industry benefits, and above all, the customer gets better things for a better living at lower cost. Thank you, Mr. Livingston. Some of our listeners might like to have a little folder called DuPont's Partnership with the Farmer. This gives more information on this subject and may be obtained free of charge by writing DuPont, Wilmington, Delaware. Just ask for the folder DuPont's Partnership with the Farmer. Daylight Saving begins next Sunday. If your community does not go on Daylight Saving time, this program will reach you one hour earlier. The Stargazer, a dramatic portrayal of events in the life of Mariah Mitchell, America's first woman astronomer, will be the subject of our broadcast when next week at this same time DuPont again presents the Cavalcade of America. This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.
