326 THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL REVIEW 



The gradual application of science to the methods of agricul- 

 ture has had an important, if not a dominant, part in the evolu- 

 tion of agriculture from a self-suflficing economy to the commer- 

 cial economy familiar today. The media by which scientific 

 knowledge reached the farmers are many, and the history- of 

 each is part of this subject. Local agricultural clubs of all kinds 

 and descriptions, agricultural fairs, agricultural periodicals, the 

 federal and state departments of agriculture, the agricultural 

 schools, colleges, and experiment stations, farmers' institutes, 

 extension work and demonstration farms, county agents, 4-H 

 clubs, etc., have served educational as well as many other func- 

 tions. Except for W. C. Neely's Agricultural Fair, E. D. Ross's 

 work on the land-grant colleges, A. L. Demaree's investigation 

 of agricultural periodicals, and a number of articles and books 

 on particular organizations, this phase of the subject offers al- 

 most unlimited opportunities for historians.*' 



The agricultural leaders of the region are another in- 

 teresting and significant part of the subject. As editors, writers, 

 inventors, scientists, and promoters of protest movements, they 

 contributed to the improvement of farming, and their waitings 

 are frequently important sources for agricultural history. That 

 their contributions as leaders have frequently been national as 

 well as regional is indicated by the fact that all of the secre- 

 taries of agriculture, except one short fill-in appointment, have 

 come from the Middle West. To Herbert A. Kellar, scholars are 

 indebted for the inclusion of agricultural leaders in the Dic- 

 tioyiary of American Biography, for he persuaded the late Allen 

 Johnson to include them and also supplied a working list of 

 names. The result is a group of useful sketches of such men as 

 Jearum Atkins, John Deere, Henry L. Ellsworth, William D. 

 Hoard, and many others. Kellar 's collection of Solon Robinson's 

 writings also deserves special mention because it delineates the 

 contributions of an important leader and supplies the student 

 with a valuable deposit of information on Middle Western agri- 



27 Wayne C. Ncoly, The Agricultural Fair (New York, 1935). Cf. Earle D. Ross, 

 "The Evolution of the Agricultural Fair in the Northwest," Iowa Journal of His- 

 tory and Politics, XXIV (1926), 445-480. There are also a number of books and 

 articles on the variouH state fairs. Ross, "The Manual Labor Experiment in the 

 Land-Orant College," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XXI (1935), 513-528. 



