THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 339 



COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' DEPARTMENT. 



ADVISERS' AND COMMISSIONERS' UNITED ACTION FOR 

 COUNTY AND STATE. 



By II. M. Akmitage, County Horticultural Commissioner, San Diego, Cal. 



It is n Hess to enlarge upon the fact that the most important problem facing 



the nation today is that of an increased production of every agricultural product, 

 particularly of the staple food crops, not only to insure a successful outcome to the 

 world war hut to insure the proper provisioning of the world in the immediate 

 years following the war. 



It is a certainty that the immediate results demanded along this line can not 

 be obtained by an hysterical opening up of large acreages of land to new or untried 

 crops and processes by persons without the necessary means or proper experience 

 or training, particularly in the face of an almost sure labor shortage. The problem 

 must be handled by more intense, scientific farming of the lands already under 

 cultivation by the men on those lands or by persons with agricultural experience and 

 training. 



Considering increased production from this standpoint there are three important 

 Factors concerned, namely: finances, labor and increased scientific knowledge of 

 agriculture in all its phases. As only the latter factor concerns both the farm adviser 

 and the horticultural commissioner, it alone need be considered in relation to the 

 present subject. 



The agricultural institutions of the country have maintained in the field, scores 

 of investigators of agricultural problems, have edited reams of valuable farming 

 information, and. up to recent years, there the process has stopped. This information 

 was stored away to await the demand of a public, who, though in dire need of it, 

 were either unaware of its existence or ignorant of how to obtain it. It therefore 

 became necessary to employ some agency through which this information might be 

 placed directly in the hands of those persons needing it, and to that end the farm 

 adviser movement was inaugurated. I T p to the present time the amount of money 

 appropriated by the Federal Government has limited the number of agents or advisers 

 that might be appointed under this system. The demand for increased scientific 

 agricultural knowledge under present conditions, however, is being met by increased 

 appropriations for agricultural extension work from the War Emergency Fund. 

 California's share of these appropriations will make it possible for the University 

 to place a farm adviser and assistant in practically every agricultural county m the 

 state Such bring the case, it becomes important that the county commissioners, 

 who to a certain extent, partly through necessity and partly as being correlated with 

 their regular duties, have been tilling the position of farm adviser in their respective 

 counties, consider the value to their county and state as a whole, and work with 

 must sincere cooperation with these advisers. 



\ thorough knowledge of what the farm adviser is and what he may do. and a 

 Clear concept in,, of the duties ami powers of our own office, is necessary to such 

 cooperation. Professor Crocheron, state leader of the farm adviser movement, 

 officially defines a farm adviser as "a man trained in agriculture, usually a graduate 

 Of an agricultural college, who has had some practical experience in the broad phases 

 of agriculture and who is conversant with the particular problems that concern the 

 locality to which he is assigned. His duties are the giving of advice to those who 

 jlesire it ,„, soil treatment, fertilization, crop adaptation and culture, animal 

 husbandry and its allied phase.. Being concerned in the increase of net returns to 

 the farmer he is also desirous of improving those civilizing forces oi the open country 

 that come under the head of better roads, schools, churches, farmers' organizations and 

 marketing facilities. He studies those various activities of the farm that are known 

 under the head of farm management and demonstrates his better methods on the 

 farm of those interested parties who desire to cooperate with him. He has the 

 forces of both the Federal Department of Agriculture and the agricultural college 



of the st in which he is working to assist him in the solving of any problems he 



may meet with, which, owing to the technical phases involved, are impossible of his 

 individual solution." His efficiency, Or value to the county, is dependent upon an 

 organization of farmers of the county, known as the county farm bureau. Che 



