28 AGRICULTURE AND HOME ECONOMICS IN UNITED STATES. 



were formed, whose members undertook some special work at home, 

 such as raising an acre of corn or a pig or canning vegetables or fruit. 

 Then it appeared that the farm women should have special assist- 

 ance in their gardening and poultry raising and in conserving and 

 utilizing their products and improving their home conditions. Women 

 agents were therefore placed in counties where funds were available 

 for their support. 



This system of extension work spread rapidly in the Southern States 

 until several hundred county men and women agents were regularly 

 employed, with Federal, State, and district agents to supervise them. 

 At first this movement was independent of the agricultural colleges, 

 but gradually they were drawn into cooperation with it. Later a similar 

 system spread into the Northern and Western States, where the colleges 

 took an active part in it. 



Maintained at first wholly with Federal funds, it afterwards received 

 for several years much of its financial support from large private con- 

 cerns, as well as from States and counties. 



The general extension movement among the farmers culminated in 

 1914 through the passage by Congress of the Smith-Lever Extension 

 Act, which made possible a combination of the demonstration work 

 with useful features of the earlier extension work, so as to form a broad 

 system of practical education for the men, women, and children on the 

 farm, supplementary to the training given in schools and colleges. 

 Under this act the agricultural colleges and the Department of Agri- 

 culture are made responsible for cooperatively carrying on the extension 

 system, which thus becomes a permanent part of the public system of 

 education throughout the 48 States. 



The act provides that the States accepting its provisions shall designate 

 colleges receiving the benefits of the land-grant act of 1862 and the 

 Morrill Act of 1890 to receive and use the Federal and State extension 

 funds. The work must be done in cooperation with the Department of 

 Agriculture and in accordance with plans mutually agreed upon by the 

 Secretary of Agriculture and the several agricultural colleges. 



Ten thousand dollars of Federal funds are annually appropriated to 

 each State, together with additional funds allotted to the States on the 

 basis of rural population. The additional funds to be thus allotted began 

 with $600,000 in 1915 and thereafter are increased by $500,000 for seven 

 years, at the end of which they will be $4,100,000 annually. These addi- 

 tional funds must be offset by equal amounts which may be appro- 

 priated by the State legislature "or provided by State, county, college, 

 local authority, or individual contributions within the State." 



In the year beginning July i, 1921, the extension work in the States is 

 maintained with $18,500,000, divided as follows: 



