THE BEGINNINGS OF COUNTY AGENT WORK 161 



ested in the plan, including representatives of the State 

 College and the Federal Department of Agriculture, an 

 agreement was reached whereby the work was to be jointly 

 financed by the Binghamton Chamber of Commerce, the 

 Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad and the 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture. The State College of 

 Agriculture, unable to contribute financially, was to "give 

 advice and encouragement." The object of the plan as 

 set forth in the formal memoranda was stated to be : 



"To undertake propaganda work in the agricultural dis- 

 trict in the vicinity of Binghamton, N. Y., to make an 

 agricultural survey of the territory, study the farmers' 

 problems, find their solution by a study of the practices 

 of successful farmers, study the relation of types of farm- 

 ing to local conditions of soil, climate, markets, etc., dem- 

 onstrate systems of farming used by successful farmers of 

 the district, and conduct demonstrations with farmers, do 

 educational work through the media of institutes, etc., ad- 

 vising with the farmers individually and otherwise as to 

 the best methods, crops, cropping systems, stock, labor, 

 tools and other equipment. " 



So with these worthy objects in view, in the spring of 

 1911, John H. Barren, farm reared, and a graduate of his 

 State College of Agriculture, was established with an office 

 in the Binghamton Chamber of Commerce as the first 

 locally employed county agent in the Northern and West- 

 ern states. The first year his only means of getting about 

 was a livery horse and buggy, but this was soon succeeded 

 by the all but universal county agent's Ford. 



Though the program was ambitious, the results were not 

 startling. Farmers were more or less indifferent. They 

 felt that something was being done for them some thought 

 to them in which they had little or no part. Their ex- 

 perience was that railroads and business men usually had 



