To add fuel to the argument for a postwar revival of the demonstration trains, F. P. Cruice, manager of the agricultural and industrial development department of the Santa Fe, learned that the New York Central Lines had run a successful "Better Sire & Dairy Demonstration Train" over its territory in Michigan during the summer of 1921. Their agricultural agent, W. H. Hill, gave Cruice a full accounting of the train - its purpose, its equipment, its personnel. The state agricultural college had all the lecturers and subject matter, in accordance with established policies; the railroad had the more straightforward task of simply keeping the train on schedule and providing for the lecturers' comfort. In addition, the New York Central operated demonstration trains in Ohio and Indiana dealing with conveniences for the farm home."(9)
Early in 1922, the president of KSAC expressed his eagerness to run a similar train in cooperation with the Santa Fe. He declared the college would "go the limit of its resources to bring to the attention of the Kansas farmers the importance of keeping more milk cows, brood sows and poultry. Running a train two weeks over a selected territory, talking face to face with the farmers of perhaps one hundred localities, would be worth millions to Kansas. It would be the natural thing for the Santa Fe railroad to start the movement."(10)
Jarrell was reminded that when the Santa Fe ran the 1917 train, the college handled the advance publicity and the railroad was responsible for the publicity on the train. Carrying the New York Central idea one step further, Jarrell propose to Cruice that Santa Fe run a train promoting the "farm side-line trinity-the cow, the sow and the hen."(11) E. W. Houx, president of the Kansas City Livestock Exchange, also encouraged Dr. C. W. Campbell at KSAC to support the idea of a "Better Sires Train," proposing the involvement of local banks to help financing in much the same way that the New York Central had found so successful.
An initial meeting between college and railroad officials was held in Manhattan towards the end of January in 1922. After, Dean Harry Umberger of the extension division forwarded to Cruice an outline of suggestions made at the meeting: The college would furnish the exhibit and demonstration material (including the cost of new material up to $200) and it would provide five regular employees and up to three additional part-time men to accompany the train. As before, the college would send advance men, where feasible, to spend as much time as necessary to put over the purebred sire exchange plan to the farmers on the proposed route.
By the middle of March the demonstration train had the approval of Edward Chambers, director of the division of traffic in Chicago. Jarrell was also thinking of printing up three of four leaflets summarizing the points to be made in the lectures, reinforcing the spoken word with the printed gospel of the "farm side-line trinity." It had become apparent some time earlier that it would be better to delay running the train until early May with its better weather. Jarrell arranged for the necessary cars to be in Topeka by late April so that they could be properly fitted out as exhibit cars-the cars would even have electric lights. The lighting engineer who worked on the cars volunteered to send a man along on the run to look after the recharging of the special Delco batteries. AS in 1917, the Public Utilities Commission in Kansas granted Santa Fe authority to run the train without charge, since the train was "in the public interest." Again the railroad's application to the commission included the presence on board of a few newspapermen from time to time, reinforcing its goodwill status.
A chef was obtained from Fred Harvey to prepare meals on Business Car 23 for the college staff and railroad personnel, as well as the train crew. Arrangements were made for food supplies to be obtained as needed through any Harvey House enroute. There would be no need to order milk and cream-it would be amply supplied by the exhibit on board! With little regard for details, Harvey House official H. L. Benjamin in Kansas City assured Jarrell that he had written the appropriate managers on the line and they would "take care of your wishes."(12) No questions were raised about cost.
With the arrival of May, the train embarked on its run. A flurry of activity took place in many of the towns on the itinerary prior to the arrival of the train. Agents in El Dorado, for example, had been concerned about blocking the street so that there would be adequate parking where the train stopped. Whatever the extent of preparations, each town turned out in force to greet the train and those on board: President W. M. Jardine, Dean Umbeiger, four professors, two extension specialists, a supervisor from KSAC's extension department, three stock car attendants, two publicity men, two county farm extension agents, and one secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, J. C. Mohler.
Advance public relation work had included the placement of newspaper advertisements in every one of the seventy-eight newspapers along the route. These advertisements, fourteen column inches each , cost the Santa Fe a total of $327.60. Coverage of the event at each town resulted in 43,256 lines (all free) of articles about the train. An advertising man to the core, Jarrell figured these were conservatively worth nearly sixty-five hundred dollars. Division freight agents, as well as station superintendents, had been requested to be with the train while it was stopped at their station. A letter had gone out from the Santa Fe to every chamber of commerce in the towns scheduled for a visit, while flyers and circulars had been sent to every station stop in mid-April.
Reflecting back, Cruice later told Jarrell the "future trains should be scheduled to reach the small communities as far as practicable and omit the larger towns, unless for special reasons it is desirable to stop. The farmer is less self-conscious in smaller places and feels freer to ask questions than when in larger places where he is surrounded by so-called city folk.(13)
The crowds exceeded everyone's expectations- Cruice telegraphed back to Topeka "crowds are double our estimate. Five thousand took literature yesterday."(14) At Elkhart, a group of farmers had come from a distance of sixty-five miles. Despite a bit of bad weather, total attendance by May 7 was 18,127, with a high of 1,214 at Garnett and a low of 311 at Lyons. Weather was a mixed blessing: too much rain created muddy roads, making it difficult for farmers to get to the depot (at Great Bend nearly two inches of rain had fallen in the two hours prior to the train's arrival; a diarist for the trip noted that "some came in Fords, some in hose drawn vehicles and some had to abandon their cars and rode horse back").(15) Good weather, on the other hand, found the farmers in the fields planting crops, necessity taking precedence over social, albeit educational, outing. Attendance for the second week (12,882) was considerably under that of the first week as additional bad weather was encountered.
Nonetheless, Cruice remained enthusiastic, declaring, "we did not encounter in the whole two weeks a scoffer or agitator...rather the speakers were given earnest attention and pamphlets containing the synopsis of the several talks...eagerly taken. I have never personally experienced quite the condition of mind that we found"(16) this despite a disappointing crowd of only a little over four hundred people at the final stop, Topeka. Cruice credited the joint cooperation of bankers, chambers of commerce, and newspapers in making the train a success. Pointing to Sylvia as a case in point, all business in town was suspended so that everyone could visit the train, townspeople as well as farmers. William Allen White, having given the train its "Lady Special" name, visited the train when it stopped at Emporia. Total attendance for the two weeks was about thirty-one thousand-an average crowd of 563 at each stop.
Considerable effort and discussion went into the taking of pictures at stops. When the agricultural college's extension editor came up with the idea of taking a picture of the crowd at every station, Jarrell was enthusiastic, only cautioning the editor that neither he nor Cruice knew how to operate a camera. The editor responded that he had some experience with "cameras and kodaks," though not enough to guarantee the quality of his work. The results speak for themselves, providing special documentation of the local interest created by the special train at each stop. Not visible in the pictures is the fact that the train's success was happily unmarred by accident of serious delay, much to Jarrell's great relief. Jarrell made a point of having as many newspapermen as possible come on board for a day or so while the train was in their territory-this and the pictures assured good coverage for the train. Unfortunately, no pictures of this 1922 train were to be found in the Kansas State Historical Society or Kansas State University photograph collections.
Following this train's successful run, Chambers told Jarrell that the meat-packers of Los Angeles wanted a livestock demonstration train in California, and the American Hereford Cattle Breeders' Association in Kansas City was requesting information on demonstration trains of this sort. A press release datelined Topeka, March 18, 1922, correctly predicted that the train would show "that farms which include in their operation milk cows, brood sows and chickens have done a good deal better during periods of depression than have the farms without these features." To the degree that farmers managed better, thanks to Santa Fe's promotion of diversification, and fared better, so to did the railroad fare better in having more produce to haul. The Winfield Daily Courier underscored the railroad's efforts, warning on May 3, 1922, that "Russia Will Come Back in Wheat Some Time and Kansas Must Go to Cattle."(17)
Some newspapers even went so far as to headline the train as a "new feminist move in Kansas" while William Allen White's paper extolled the virtues of "The Lady Special" in a verse appearing in the issue of May 11:
The helpful hen, the milkful cow,
The hamful and the pigful sow,
Tomorrow will be here to show
The farmers how they all can grow,
When treated kindly and with care,
And fed on clean and wholesome fare,
The farmer and his kids and wife,
Are asked to leave their daily strife
With wind and weather, drought and rain,
To see this festive female train.
It's free to all, for none can pay.
You'll find it at the Santa Fe.
So pack your family in the bus
And come, and have this show on us.
You'll learn to beat the farmer game-
You'll be darned thankful that you came. (18)
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