478 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



from the iioents in summarizing their accounts of the preceding year 

 and in studying the profits and losses of their business. The agents 

 assisted in the organization of 1,091 purchasing and marketing asso- 

 ciations, and the total cooperative business conducted through farm- 

 ers' exchanges and purchasing and marketing associations which 

 the agents assisted in organizing reached more than $60,700,000. 

 with an approximate saving to farmers of nearly $5,500,000. In 

 addition, 254 farm-loan associations were organized and 11,939 

 farmers Avere assisted in securing credit for the purchase of ma- 

 chinery, seeds, fertilizer, and supplies. The labor bureaus started 

 by the agents under war conditions were continued in most cases, 

 and through these bureaus 118,891 laborers were secured for farmers. 



TRAINING COUNTY AGENTS. 



The problem of keeping men in county-agent work, of finding and 

 training men for the work, is of greater importance than ever before. 

 When county-agent work was started in the Northern and Western 

 States, it was thought or rather Iioped that the men appointed to 

 the positions would remain in the work for a considerable period of 

 years and that the work might be thought of as a career comparable 

 at least with other professional work in agriculture. Experience has 

 proven that this is desirable and that a good county agent becomes 

 increasingly useful as his period of service is lengthened. It takes 

 time to learn local conditions and gain the cooperation and confidence 

 of farmers. A new agent must be able to work sympathetically with 

 an}' organized groups of country people that he may find in the 

 county and often to helj) in a more effective and complete organiza- 

 tion for carrying on extension work. Most of all, the county agent 

 must analyze and be able to correctly interpret the economic tendency 

 in his county. The experience of those agents who have been in 

 the work for five or six years has demonstrated the value of continued 

 and concerted effort imder uniform leadership to properly develop 

 permanent agricultural programs. It is therefore a matter of some 

 concern that the average period of service of the 798 men who have re- 

 signed from county-agent work since 1911 has been but a year and seven 

 months, and the average period of service of the men at work now 

 is less than tAvo years. Of the 2,108 men appointed since 1911, 37 

 per cent have resigned. 



The large turnover now that the work is approaching its maximum 

 has created a serious problem for the State agricultural colleges, 

 which must furnish the men to fill these positions. The magnitude 

 of the requirements Avill be understood when it is considered that 

 95 per cent of the county agents now in the service are four-year 

 graduates of an agricultural college, while an additional 4 per cent 

 have had some agricultural college training. Based on the present 

 turnover, it will take about 475 new men annually in the Northern 

 and Western States alone to supply the places of agents resigning. 



EXTENSION COURSES AT AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. 



In recognition of the need of trained men for county agents and 

 other positions in the extension service, the agricultural colleges are 

 making a beginning in the organization of extension courses, Colo- 

 rado, New York, Oregon, and Wisconsin have begun such instruction 



