Having known the before and after conditions, as continually amazed at the changes Extension Work has brought.

There was a time when people located their wells by experience and friendly neighbor, and then wait till time proved the drinking water safe, or else some member of the family had typhoid fever.

Now we send a sample to the county office and have a test made very quickly. We can step to the phone and call up, or write a post card, to county, state or national bureaus of statistics for an experts advice on any one of all problems a homemaker faces.

There was a time when the only method known to preserve food for winter, was drying, a child was thrilled to be given a tiny piece of apple or peach leather, through the cold dark days of winter. How the women searched for the first wild greens as a spring tonic, and cooked thinned out beet and radish tops.

We were really progressing when we began to can tomatoes and peaches.

We did not have pressure cookers, lockers, deep freezes, or a market to purchase these things, even if we had had the money to do so. The joke about the woman who said, "If I had some meal I'd make some mush, if I had some milk," came close to home for many.

Every year while we are still hot and most of us bothered, here comes the call for specimens of our work, to be sent to the fair.

Maybe in the rush, we did not quite follow all the rules laid down, on the sewing done, or something happened, that none of the club jars could be found, when we were canning, or anyway, that's an awful lot of trouble to go to, for no better taste than is in an ordinary jar of food.

Possibly we just forgot, or some other thing claimed our time, when we should have made our rugs.

All in all, its an awful lot of work piled on officials and helpers, so if enrollment came at that time too, few would join.

However, when it's displayed, and we can see the results, work eases up a little and we have one of those good old entertaining sessions, most of us are ready to start over and keep making the best better.

Then we get to wondering just how it all came about.

Who did all the spade work necessary to get such a wonderful organization started? Whoever it was, had a job driving a team over the county, where little work had been done on roads, and we would give a nickel to know just what was said, too, then they got there.

Fortunately, there are some left to tell us. Some who now have to sit with folded hands, and may feel they are not contributing much, but they should be honored and made to feel, they, of all us, have contributed most.