RURAL AMERICA 



on seasonable suggestions on farm, garden, home work, etc. 

 Investigation showed that 80 per cent of all these letters were 

 used, either in whole or in part, by the newspapers. For 

 correspondence courses, 140 lessons have been completed on 

 the following subjects: Alfalfa, bee keeping, clover culture, 

 concrete on the farm, corn culture, dairy farming, farm 

 accounts, farm water supply and sanitation, home economics, 

 orchard fruits, garden products, potato raising, poultry farm- 

 ing, sheep farming, soil fertility, vegetable growing and 

 tobacco growing. 



This underestimates rather than exaggerates the work, since 

 there are many activities of a detailed character that cannot 

 be mentioned. Of course in other states the work is adapted 

 to the needs of the several states, so that each state does the 

 things that will be most helpful to its own country life. In 

 1923 and thereafter the state of Ohio will have available for 

 this work annually the large sum of fully $350,000. 



D. County Agent 



The county agent has been a big factor in promoting the 

 interests of rural life for a period of twelve years, and 

 already over one thousand counties in the forty-eight states 

 have taken advantage of the provisions of the law relative 

 to county agents. Many of these counties also have county 

 experiment farms. There is no doubt that counties having 

 experiment farms under the direction of competent county 

 agents are in a position to make wonderful progress in 

 agricultural development. It is found that experimentation 

 in one part of a state will not prove, except in a general 

 way, very helpful to any portion of the state except that 

 contiguous to the farm on which the experiments are con- 

 ducted. Soil, climate and many other factors make it neces- 

 sary that each county do its own experimenting and accept 

 very little that has not been proved successful within the 

 county itself. Hence, there ought to be not only a county 

 agent, but an experiment farm, in every agricultural county 



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