198 BACKGROUND AND MEANS OF SERVICE 



legislation was therefore sought from Congress which would 

 accomplish this end. 



Under the leadership of Representative Lever of North 

 Carolina in the House and of Senator Hoke Smith of 

 Georgia in the Senate, with the help of Department officers, 

 and the intelligent persistent backing of the agricultural 

 colleges, the Smith-Lever agricultural act was worked out 

 and passed by the Congress in May, 1914. It became ef- 

 fective the following July. The act contains several im- 

 portant provisions which, since it forms the basis of county 

 agent work, should be generally understood. These are (1) 

 cooperative management with the states, (2) progressive 

 appropriations, (3) the state duplication or offset of fed- 

 eral moneys, (4) the method of the distribution of funds, 

 and (5) certain limitations. 



COOPERATIVE MANAGEMENT 



The federal Department of Agriculture had begun to do 

 some independent extension work in the states and this 

 had tended toward confusion and sometimes toward mis- 

 understanding. A precedent had been set in the Hatch and 

 Adams experiment station acts for close cooperation with 

 the state colleges and this precedent was now followed by 

 the framers of the Smith-Lever Act. It was provided that 

 all work done under the act must be in cooperation with 

 the states through the Land Grant or state colleges desig- 

 nated by the state legislatures which must also formally 

 accept the provisions of the law before it became operative 

 in any state. It was further provided that the director of 

 extension at the state college must draw up definite plans 

 and projects covering the work proposed for the ensuing 

 fiscal year and that these must be approved by.the Secretary 

 of Agriculture before the funds became available. 



