62 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



colleges, and by the United States Department of Agriculture. This 

 practical teaching, together with lectures, movable schools — which 

 travel through the country and last from a week to a month at cer- 

 tain centres — correspondence courses, exhibitions, fairs, and the 

 organisation of farmers' clubs for the study of agricultural and 

 housekeeping methods, are, in brief, the machinery of ' extension 

 work.' The purpose is the development of local institutes and 

 leadership." 



At the outset county agents were appointed by the State Colleges, 

 acting as agricultural authorities in each particular State, but doing 

 so in co-operation with the Federal Department of Agriculture, which, 

 although leaving all executive action to the said college, never relin- 

 quished its grip upon the matter. So directed, the movement 

 advanced and gave satisfaction. However, the war came with its 

 many calls upon agriculture. And farmers grew impatient at what 

 appeared to them too slow progress of expansion. They were 

 exhorted to produce much. They wanted to know how to do it. 

 There were scores of demands besides. The Treasury, the Depart- 

 ment, the Food Supply Office, all and every office connected with the 

 matter had calls to make upon the country. And the county agent 

 was the only person who could answer such calls. He had in fact 

 become the county factotum. Everybody, official or otherwise, 

 applied to him, and he had to deal with all issues. That was as far 

 as there were county agents. But there were still far too few. So 

 farmers decided to take the matter into their own hands, forming 

 county committees to expedite the matter, independently of official 

 action. They were at first a little laughed at for their supposed 

 presumption. But they persevered, forming their own committees, 

 rejoicing in a variety of shapes, names and organisations, all of them 

 well supported by good citizens who thought them so useful that they 

 gladly contributed their dollars. That was, for the most part, the 

 only support available for the new institution. Despised as these 

 committees were at the outset, they have, so formed, become deve- 

 loped into what are now known and valued as " County Farm 

 Bureaus " — in the words of an official pamphlet, " the headstone of 

 the corner, a most valued institution and, in company with the 

 county agent, the hope and certain pledge of further magnificent 

 development." " It was," so says the pamphlet already referred to, 

 " a most happy augury that a war, which was essentially a war for 

 democracy, should have borne as one of its first fruits a greater 

 democracy of agricultural education, whereby the farmers may 

 themselves participate, in an effective organised way, in shaping the 



