The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1957, Qupperneq 21

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
19
21; Washington, D. C., December 24-
28.
The official published program
opens as follows:
“1. Background, Purposes and Ob-
jectives of Study
To provide training for six-
teen Icelanders in the use, main-
tenance and repair of farm tractors
and other agricultural machinery.
Such knoweledge is badly needed in
Iceland where such farm machinery
has been purchased in recent years but
service facilities are inadequate by
reason of a shortage of trained person-
nel.
“Some of the participants are In-
structors for the Agricultural Society
in the use and maintenance of farm
machinery. In carrying out their duties
they travel all over the country giving
technical advice and assistance to
farmers. One member is a teacher in
an agricultural school and will be
in position to pass his knowledge to
many others. The majority of the
participants, however, were selected
from 13 of the 21 districts in Iceland.
In this manner all districts where agri-
culture is important are represented.”
The following attended the course:
Bjorn Benediktsson
J6nas Bjarnason
Steinjior Eirrksson
Johannes Gestsson
SumarliSi Gunnarsson
Ingolfur GuSnason
Sigurpor Hjorleifsson
Steingrimur Jonsson
Tryggvi Jonsson
Halldor Kristjansson
Einar borsteinsson
Larus Siggeirsson
bormoSur Sigurgeirsson
Ingi Sveinsson
Haukur Jorundarson
The reaction in the United States
is revealed in the following two
letters.
1176 Pismo St.
San Luis Obispo, California
March 29, 1957
Dear Mr. Helgason:
You expressed a desire of knowing
what I thought of the Icelandic Group
after being their Technical Leader for
■three months.
As you know there were fifteen of
them, over here to learn all they could
about farm mechanization, especially
the maintenance of farm tractors and
the tools pulled by tractors.
As their leader I arranged the hotel
reservations, railroad schedules, train
and Pullman tickets. Rail travel was
a new experience for most of them and
we rode the best trains, most of the
time.
The program laid out for them by
Mr. H. W. Dill of the International
Co-operation Administration of the
U.S. Department of Aariculture took
us first to the State of Maine. Then
out to the Pacific Coast with stops at
Chicago, Lincoln, Nebraska, and three
weeks at California Polytechnic Col-
lege in San Luis Obispo. A weeks tour
by bus of the San Joaquin Valley and
San Francisco. Then back to Wash-
ington where we spent Christmas; and
finally a few days in New York City
before they left by plane for Iceland.
There were tears in the eyes of my
wife when they told us goodbye on
January 3rd in New York. Ingi Sveins-
son, the Rotarian in the group present-
ed her with a beautiful sheep-skin rug
from Iceland and to me a finely il-
lustrated book of Iceland, views with
the names of the group on the inside
page.
In my thirty odd years in the Agri-
cultural Extension Service of the Uni-