160 BACKGROUND AND MEANS OF SERVICE 



mostly unsuccessful attempts to apply the Southern plan 

 in the North were made elsewhere at about .the same time. 

 The most notable of these was in Ohio, where at one time, 

 according to W. A. Lloyd, "more than four thousand co- 

 operative experiments were carried on." 



BROOME COUNTY, NEW YORK 



It was in Broome County, at Binghamton, N. Y., on 

 March 1, 1911, that the first county agent in the Northern 

 and Western states was permanently established; and this 

 was by the Chamber of Commerce. During the summer 

 of 1910, partly as a result of the report of the Country 

 Life Commission, of which L. H. Bailey was chairman, and 

 partly aroused by a visit of the then Secretary of Agricul- 

 ture, James Wilson, to inspect some of the work above 

 referred to, and who were impressed by the number of the 

 apparently "abandoned farms" on the hills of Southern 

 New York, Byers H. Gitchell, then Secretary of the Bing- 

 hamton Chamber of Agriculture, began the agitation for a 

 ' ' farm bureau, ' ' or department of the Chamber, as a means 

 of "extending to farmers the same opportunities for co- 

 operation now enjoyed by the business men of this city." 



The idea was aided and encouraged by the Delaware, 

 Lackawanna and Western Railroad, which had planned a 

 demonstration farm along its lines but which, on the ad- 

 vice of W. J. Spillman, gave up the plan and joined with 

 the Binghamton Chamber of Commerce in the employment 

 of a permanent resident county agent in Broome County. 

 This railroad, due largely to the influence of its former 

 general traffic manager, George A. Cullen, continued to 

 aid this and other bureaus in New York state with its con- 

 tributions and support up to 1920. Following a summer's 

 study and survey of the situation by all the parties inter- 



