THE AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICE 



M. L. MosHERj President National Association of Farm Advisers, Eureka 



HE Agricultural Extension Service is the name given to 

 that part of the program for agricultural development 

 which connects the individual farmer and his family with 

 the work of the state and national departments, institu- 

 tions, and organizations which are working to make farm- 

 ing more profitable and to insure the profitable operation 

 of our farms in the future, so that here in America the generations to 

 come may continue to have enough food to eat, enough clothes to wear, 

 and comfortable houses for shelter. Another function of the Ex- 

 tension Service is to carry to individual families on the farms informa- 

 tion as to how the profits from farming when there are profits may 

 be spent or invested so as to bring the most satisfaction to themselves, 

 to their children, their neighbors, and the Nation. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EXTENSION SERVICE 



The development of the Extension Service has been a very natural 

 one. Fifty or sixty years ago, the agricultural colleges were organ- 

 ized to teach the farm boys the science and the art of successful farm- 

 ing. The teachers soon learned that they did not have the necessary 

 facts with which to teach ; so about thirty or forty years ago the state 

 experiment stations were organized. Gradually the people out on the 

 farms became interested in getting more and more of the accumulated 

 information, and fifteen or twenty years ago an extension service was 

 instituted in order to carry such information to the farms. The 

 leaders of the movement soon adopted the plan of placing a representa- 

 tive of the agricultural departments and institutions, known as a 

 "county agent" or "farm adviser," in each agricultural county in 

 order that he might live among the people and maintain a close per- 

 sonal connection between the farm family and the colleges and the de- 

 partments of agriculture. 



The formation of the organizations now known as county Farm 

 Bureaus, through which the farm adviser might function and by which 

 the payment of the expenses of maintaining the work might be in- 

 sured, naturally followed the coming of the farm advisers. The 

 federation of these county Farm Bureaus into state organizations, and 

 of the state federations into the American Farm Bureau Federation, 

 was a very natural development. The state and national federations 



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