CHAPTER VIII 

 THE BEGINNINGS OF COUNTY AGENT WORK 



CHARACTERISTICALLY, county agent work began with a def- 

 inite project of service to farmers in a time of need. It 

 established an ideal often forgotten, but always a first 

 principle of successful county agent activity service 

 through education. 



IN THE SOUTH 



Down in the Southland a new pest of "King Cotton," 

 known as the ' ' boll weevil, ' ' had reached such a destructive 

 stage by 1903 and 1904 in certain areas of East Texas, where 

 cultural methods were far from good, that it threatened the 

 very existence of several communities. The cotton crop, 

 which was the main income producer here, was so reduced 

 as seriously to affect the farmer's credit and his buying 

 power. So the business of many small rural towns was 

 drying up. In this emergency Congress was appealed to 

 and an appropriation was secured. With this appropria- 

 tion and under the direction of Dr. Seaman A. Knapp in 

 the Department of Agriculture an effort was begun toi 

 control the boll weevil. 



So far there was nothing new in the undertaking. Sim- 

 ilar troubles had occurred before. Appropriations by Con- 

 gress were a common but not always a sure remedy. It 

 was the methods employed by Doctor Knapp that proved 

 to be epochal. 



Working in cooperation with the Department's trained 

 scientists in the Bureaus of Plant Industry and Entomol- 



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