I also went over the matter with C.S.Barrett, of Georgia, a leader in the Southern farmers' movement, and with other men, such as Henry Wallace, Dean L.H.Bailey, of Cornell, and Kenyon Butterfield.
One man from whose advice I especially profited was not an American, but an Irishman, Sir Horace Plunkett.

In various conversations he described to me and my close associates the reconstruction of farm life which had been accomplished by the Agricultural Organization Society of Ireland, of which he was the founder and the controlling force; and he discussed the application of similar methods to the improvements of farm life in the United States.

In the spring of 1908, at my request, Plunkett conferred on the subject with Garfield and Pinchot, and the latter suggested to him the appointment of a Commission on Country Life as a means for directing the attention of the Nation to the problems of the farm, and for securing the necessary knowledge of the actual conditions of life in the open country.

After long discussion a plan for a Country Life Commission was laid before me and approved.

The appointment of the Commission followed in August, 1908.