264 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



pany, and the Chicago Board of Trade. Sears, Roebuck and Company, 

 the Chicago mail-order house, provided $1,000,000 for experts to advise 

 and demonstrate in a hundred counties throughout the United States, and 

 the International Harvester Company is said to have earmarked another 

 million to be spent in agricultural extension work under the supervision 

 of Professor P. G. Holden, formerly of Iowa State College. The Chicago 

 Board of Trade also reportedly set aside $1,000,000 for the improvement 

 of agricultural methods through a system of county agents. 25 



The federal government probably would have been slower in extending 

 financial help had it not been for the earlier efforts of the mercantile 

 firms, the chambers of commerce, and the railroads. The passage of the 

 Smith-Lever Act in 1914 committed the federal government to the aid 

 of the county agents. Money provided by the federal government was 

 to be matched by state grants and spent and administered through the 

 state agricultural colleges. 26 By 1917, a strong extension program had been 

 worked out in nearly every state. 



When the United States entered the first World War, the demand for 

 food and the need for manpower placed heavy responsibilities on the 

 agents to increase production and conserve food. Many new "emergency 

 agents" were appointed. Crop and livestock production was stepped up; 

 seeds and tractors were obtained for farmers; farm labor was supplied; 

 new county farm bureaus were created. By 1918, the county farm bureaus 

 had made rapid strides in the North and West. 27 



Once the value of the county agent had been established, the need for 

 federating these county units into state organizations became obvious. 

 The forming of state bodies was expected to coordinate the work of the 

 county organizations, to enable them to discuss their mutual problems, to 

 profit from the experiences of one another, and to give the farmers "a 

 power and influence in state and nation commensurate with the impor- 

 tance of agriculture. . . ." State farm bureaus had been organized before 

 the entrance of the United States into World War I. The Missouri Farm 

 Bureau, organized in March, 1915, was the first state organization. By 

 the fall of 1918, they had been formed in ten or twelve states, and after 



25. The New International Year Boo\, 1912, p. 20. 



26. Burritt, The County Agent and the Farm Bureau, pp. 169-70; True, A His- 

 tory of Agricultural Extension Wor\, pp. 100-15. 



27. Ibid., p. 134. 



