314 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



mnde tl\e work a valuable agency in assisting other oflfices and 

 bureaus in obtaining knowledge of field conditions and in taking 

 information of great value to the farmers. During the past year 

 assistance has been rendered to the department by encouraging the 

 raising of peanuts, by the distribution of information regarding 

 cotton wilt and other cotton diseases, by the distribution of wilt- 

 resistant seed, by the selection of farmers for cooperative work with 

 the department in other offices, while considerable aid has been ren- 

 dered the Bureau of Animal Industry in assisting to educate the 

 farmers as to the necessity of tick eradication in the Southern States. 



Plans for the fiscal year 1912. — No important changes will be 

 made in the general plan of the work for the coming fiscal year. 

 Following the established policy of the department, the congres- 

 sional appropriation will be spent in territory now infested or likely 

 soon to be infested with the boll weevil. The work in Florida arid 

 the southwestern part of Georgia has therefore been transferred to 

 the department rolls. Throughout the entire territory the work will 

 be intensified and strengthened by the addition of new counties and 

 by an increased average term of employment of local agents from 

 seven and one-half to nine months a year, all of which is made possi- 

 ble by the increased funds available. The work in Texas, Okla- 

 homa, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, south- 

 ern Georgia, and Florida will be supported by congressional appro- 

 priations ; the funds derived from the General Education Board will 

 be devoted to the work of preparing those States farther east for 

 boll- weevil infestation. During the present fiscal year the work will 

 be carried on in the northern part of Georgia, in South Carolina, 

 North Carolina, and Virginia, and possibly in the southern part of 

 Maryland. 



An addition to the boys' demonstration work will be made by the 

 organization of boys' cotton clubs in the various States. Cotton is 

 the great staple crop of the South, and while the boys' corn clubs 

 served the purposes already mentioned, they have also educated the 

 boys, to the point where they can make a greater success in the 

 raising of cotton. During the present fiscal year clubs will be organ- 

 ized to a limited extent in all of the cotton States. Each boy will 

 be required to cultivate 2 acres of cotton under instructions from this 

 office. Special emphasis will be laid on seed selection and careful 

 and intensive cultivation. As far as possible, boys who have had 

 experience in the boys' corn clubs will be enrolled in this work. It 

 has been found from experience that boys who raised cotton under 

 the instructions of this office in the past few years have made a pro- 

 nounced success. Occasionally boys in badly infested weevil terri- 

 tory have produced large yields where their fathers made failures, 

 owing to the fact that the boys followed instructions implicitly. 



Plans for the fiscal year 1913. — Except in localities where the 

 department has secured the most hearty financial cooperation of 

 States and counties it has been impossible to extend the work as 

 rapidly as the demand for it would warrant. With financial as- 

 sistance from the local people it has been possible in some States to 

 organize a far better and more perfect system than in States where 

 no financial assistance has been forthcoming. Constant demands for 

 the work in the States where it is now being conducted come from 



