344 ANNUAL EEPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Very cordial relations exist between the specialists and the county 

 agents in most of the States. 



There are now employed specialists in marketing and rural organi- 

 zation, dairying, live stock, animal disease, plant disease, horti- 

 culture, entomology, agronomy, agricultural engineering, home 

 canning, curing of meats, farm management, etc. At the close of 

 the fiscal year 1916 there were 201 specialists in the 15 Southern 

 States. 



NEGRO WORK. 



All the States except Tennessee have one or more negro demon- 

 stration agents for work among the negi'oes. There were on June 

 30, 1917, 66 negro men agents and 7 negro women agents carrying on 

 work in thickly settled negro communities along practically the same 

 lines as among white people. 



In most States the special work for negroes is carried on by co- 

 operation between the department, the State agricultural colleges 

 for whites, and the negro agricultural and industrial colleges. The 

 cooperative arrangement within the State is perfected by the college 

 for white people receiving the benefits of the Smith-Lever Act. 



In most cases the negro agent is an assistant to the regular white 

 county agent to conduct the work among the negro people of the 

 county. Under this plan the. regular county agent has general 

 supervision of the work. In the negro boys' clubs, called farm 

 makers' clubs, and negro girls' clubs, called home makers' clubs, to 

 distinguish them from white boys' and girls' clubs, there were en- 

 rolled at the close of the fiscal year 1916 75,605 negro boys and girls, 

 an increase of nearly 17 per cent over the previous year. Incom- 

 plete reports for 1917 indicate that the growth of the work for 

 negroes was probably as great during the last year as in 1916. 



SPECIAL CAMPAIGNS. 



The agricultural situation in the South, especially in the cotton 

 belt, during the last three years has been one of extremes. When 

 the war broke out in 1914, cotton went down to 5 and 6 cents a 

 pound. Through the " safe farming " campaign described in the last 

 annual report there was a large increase in food crops and a 15 per 

 cent reduction of acreage in cotton in the season of 1915. In the 

 fall of 1915 the price of cotton advanced. The efforts of the exten- 

 sion forces in all the cotton States were redoubled to maintain or 

 increase the food acreage. In the season of 1916 there was an in- 

 crease of 15 per cent in the cotton acreage, but no material reduction 

 in the acreage of food and feed crops over the 1915 increase. 



The spring season of 1917 was not advantageous for the planting 

 of crops. Nevertheless the net result of the intensive campaign con- 

 ducted by the demonstration forces to increase the product of food- 

 stuffs was a remarkable increase in the planting of corn, soy beans, 

 velvet beans, cowpeas, peanuts, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, and 

 other food and feed crops. The acreage increase of corn in the South 

 during 1917 was from 10 to as high as 20 per cent, while the produc- 

 tion in some States was nearly 100 per cent over the production of 

 1916. Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina 



