EDITOR'S PREFACE 



The present system of American agricultural education 

 in its various forms is the result, broadly speaking, of the 

 application of science to practice. For a long period, the 

 field of this scientific agriculture was almost wholly that 

 of production. Special students of agriculture were en- 

 deavoring to discover the laws of plant and animal growth 

 and the interrelations of soil, climate, and plant. More 

 recently, efforts are being made to work out in the same 

 fashion the laws of economic and social development. Thus, 

 the field of scientific agriculture has broadened to include 

 all the interests of farmers and their communities. 



A remarkable development of this broadened field of 

 agriculture has been the recent extension of agricultural 

 education. Teachers in the agricultural colleges at first 

 gave their efforts largely to the teaching of resident stu- 

 dents. Then gradually the "professors" began to go out 

 to talk to the farmers. After a while came the Farmers' 

 Institutes, where working farmers and agricultural special- 

 ists joined forces in a program of instruction and discus- 

 sion. The Act of Congress, known as the Smith-Lever Act, 

 passed in 1914 opened on a national basis a wonderful 

 chapter in agricultural extension service, and the County 

 Agent became the clearing house of information and sug- 

 gestion between the working farmer and the educational 

 institutions., 



This extension service, combined with the broadened 

 definition of agriculture, and further influenced by the 

 work of the County Farm Bureaus, has made this County 



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