The purpose of the study was to obtain information that would add to the knowledge available to personnel at State and local levels in order to develop recommendations to enhance the performance of the young farmer program. One hundred thirty-eight young farmer chapters constituted the sample for the study and were rated at three levels by area supervisors of vocational agriculture on the basis of questionnaire responses from the advisors of the chapters sampled. Chapters considered to be highly successful had significantly higher ratings assigned to the importance of young farmer chapters by advisors, younger members, more members who had completed high school and had one college degree, and more members engaged in an agricultural occupation other than production agriculture. There were also more meetings with more people in attendance, more community service activities, and more resource people used in teaching in the high level chapters. Finally, there were significantly more teachers of vocational agriculture employed in the schools where chapters were ranked high. Ten recommendations for improving the Texas young farmer program were made on the basis of the conclusions. (AG)