A branch of the Department known as the States Relations Service is engaged in educational work on a vast scale. All over the country its “county agents” are giving direct instruction and advice to the farmers. There are about twenty-four hundred of these officials now in the field, besides 1,700 “home demonstration agents,” who help the farmers’ wives to solve their domestic problems. Farm work is made interesting and profitable to the rising generation by means of some forty different kinds of clubs, such as Pig Clubs, Corn Clubs, Canning Clubs and Poultry Clubs, in which are enrolled more than two million boys and girls. Lastly, the Department is by far the largest publisher of agricultural information in the world. Last year it issued over twenty-five hundred documents of all kinds, in editions aggregating nearly one hundred million copies. Included in this stupendous flood of literature were millions of copies of Farmers’ Bulletins, distributed free of charge, and each devoted to some practical topic connected with rural life and industries. PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 7, No. 11, SERIAL No. 183 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC. [Illustration: EXHIBIT OF BUREAU OF FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC COMMERCE] _THE STORY OF UNCLE SAM_ _Promoting Commerce_ THREE The Department of Commerce, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve Board, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Bureau of Markets, the Shipping Board, and many other agencies of the Federal Government are engaged in promoting and regulating the commercial business of the country. The Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, a branch of the Department of Commerce, collects information about foreign markets for American goods from American consuls, commercial attachés stationed at the principal foreign capitals, and a corps of traveling special agents. The Bureau issues a daily newspaper called _Commerce Reports_, containing notes and articles of commercial interest from all parts of the world and a list of “Foreign Trade Opportunities.” Each of these “opportunities” for American business in some foreign country is set forth in a brief paragraph. The following are examples: 29267.*--Chemicals, and equipment and supplies for electroplating work are required by a firm in Denmark. Correspondence may be in English. Reference. 29268.*--A company in India desires to purchase and secure an agency for the sale of steel and iron in bars, sheets, tubes, plates, etc.; builders’ and engineers’ hardware; caustic soda; and petroleum and lubricating oils. References. 29269.*--The purchase of plywood and veneers in all thicknesses and sizes is desired by a man in England. Terms, credit preferred, or will pay cash against documents. References.