COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES 303 



Funds. — The United States Department had not funds 

 enough to enable them to extend the county agent work as 

 rapidly as it was sought. Business men were quick to see 

 the advantage to themselves and to the community in 

 saving the cotton crop and readily donated money to 

 supplement the United States Department funds. The work 

 was rapidly extended and soon took on the form of county 

 work, usually each county employing its own agent in co- 

 operation with the United States Department of Agriculture 

 and its State College of Agriculture. This work spread rap- 

 idly over the South and later was started in the North, so 

 that in 1915 there were about 1,500 county agents employed 

 in the United States. 



The work of a county agent is varied. He is the joint 

 representative of the people in a county, the State Col- 

 lege of Agriculture and the United States Department of 

 Agriculture. It is the agent's business to do everjrthing he 

 can for the improvement of agriculture, business and con- 

 ditions of living in the county in which he is employed. 

 He brings directly to the service of the farmers and others 

 in the county the facilities of the two institutions they 

 have created and are maintaining, namely, their own state Ex- 

 periment Station and the United States Department of 

 Agriculture. 



Local Information. — As an agent travels over a county he 

 finds many men who are succeeding in their particular lines 

 of work. One man has made a success of corn growing. 

 Another has succeeded in fruit raising. Others have suc- 

 ceeded with dairying, hogs, poultry or with beef cattle. 

 The county agent with his thorough training and experience 

 is able to study the methods of these successful men and to 

 quickly determine the principles which have resulted in 

 their successes. He is then in position to inform others of 

 these successful methods, to suggest improvements in the 

 general methods of farming in the county and in many 

 cases induce farmers to visit the farms where the most suc- 

 cessful methods are being practiced. 



The county agent must be a man thoroughly familiar 

 with farm work and farm life from having lived and worked 

 on a farm for years. He must be quite famihar with the 



