STATES RELATIONS SERVICE. 571 



not made much progress as regards the organization of new territory 

 since the withdrawal of a large part of the home demonstration 

 force immediately after the war. 



An encouraging element in the present development of extension 

 work, which it is believed will favorably affect the whole enterprise, 

 is the increasing attention paid to community organization, involv- 

 ing larger and more intimate participation of both men and women 

 in the planning and conduct of the local extension work. 



With the nation-wide spread of the extension work and the ap- 

 proximate standardization of its purposes and methods it became 

 apparent that it would be much better to have the Federal business 

 connected with this work transacted through a single office in the 

 States Relations Service. Therefore in 1920 the two offices were 

 combined. Since that time much has been done toward adjusting 

 the Washington office to new conditions in the department and the 

 States. In order that the department as a whole might enter more 

 fully into the extension work and the different bureaus might have 

 more definite relations to the extension office and the State and 

 county cooperative workers, general supervision of the extension 

 work of the department has been temporarily given to the Assistant 

 Secretary of Agi^iculture and the way prepared for such supervision 

 by a permanent director of extension work, provided for in the ap- 

 propriation act for the next fiscal year. Extension representatives of 

 different bureaus have been put under the direction of the office of 

 cooperative extension work as regards their plans of work and con- 

 tacts with the field, while they office in the bureaus which are held 

 responsible for the subject matter of their extension teaching. 



The Washington extension office has been reorganized into three 

 divisions: (1) Office administration, (2) programs, and (3) methods 

 of extension organization and teaching. The division of programs 

 carries on the work relating to the administration of the Smith- 

 Lever Act and related Federal legislation, including plans of work, 

 budgets, inspection of work and expenditures, and consultations with 

 State extension officers regarding the administration of their work. 

 The division of methods collects and disseminates information re- 

 garding methods of organization of different lines of extension 

 work and methods of extension teaching of different subjects. Con- 

 tacts with the extension forces in the field are made through the 

 extension directors. A distinct effort has been made to consider 

 the extension work as one unified enterprise for the benefit of the 

 men, women, and children on American farms and to interest all 

 extension agents in the promotion of the enterprise as a whole, 

 rather than simply the particular line of work in which they in- 

 dividually are engaged. 



During the nine years since the passage of the Smith-Lever Exten- 

 sion Act a broad S3^stem of practical instruction for the men, women, 

 and children on American farms, outside the schools, has been 

 developed on a permanent basis by the cooperative efforts of the 

 department and the State agricultural colleges, aided by the counties, 

 farm organizations, and numerous individuals. This extension sys- 

 tem is now organized to a greater or less extent in over 2,100 agri- 

 cultural counties and annually reaches directly several millions of 

 our farming people. More and more it has formed a broad basis 

 of popular support of research and education in agriculture and 



