206 BACKGROUND AND MEANS OF SERVICE 



agricultural interests and all the sections of the county. 

 This advisory committee receives and passes upon the re- 

 ports and recommendations of special project committees 

 appointed in advance by the farm bureau president on the 

 advice of the county agent, to represent special phases of 

 the county's farming, as dairying, fruit growing, etc., or 

 special problems, as drainage and the use of lime. 



In arriving at their recommendations these special com- 

 mittees have the services of the specialists of the colleges. 

 The county agent is always on hand to help and to guide 

 the committees with advice and suggestions out of his wide 

 knowledge of the county, its problems and needs. The 

 program thus arrived at is recommended to the county 

 executive committee and the college, who pass upon it in 

 relation to their resources and ability to carry it out. Men 's 

 and women's programs of work are often arrived at sepa- 

 rately by different committee groups and this would seem 

 to be good policy as many of their problems are quite dif- 

 ferent, and as it enlists more persons in the work. In such 

 cases certain features, as recreation, general community 

 betterment and the like, are determined upon together. 



There are, of course, wide variations in this simple plan 

 of procedure. Many elaborate schemes for arriving at a 

 county program for county agents have been devised by 

 Department supervisors and state county agent leaders, but 

 most of them have failed or only been approximated be- 

 cause they were too cumbersome. In all too many cases no 

 plan of procedure at all is used, or even the simple plan 

 outlined above is not carried out, leaving the program 

 making entirely to college representative and county agent. 

 This is poor psychology and secures neither the best pro- 

 gram nor the best cooperation and results. 



