74 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [17:2— Feb., 1921 



per bushel. Another produced 221.2 bushels at a cost of 16 cents 

 per bushel, alongside of a field producing 40 bushels per acre. One 

 boy in Alabama produced 212.5 bushels at 8,6 cents per bushel, and 

 another, 224.75 bushels at 19.8 cents per bushel. The plan is to 

 instruct, to direct, to guide and to train each boy, and involves the 

 cooperation of school officers, teachers and agents of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. The making of a crop economically and 

 successfully is stressed, and particular inspiration is afforded the 

 leaders and the boys when yields perhaps the greatest ever pro- 

 duced, are secured at the low costs of 8.6 and 14.2 cents per bushel. 



In South Carolina in 1909, one boy raised 152.5 bushels of com 

 on one acre, while the state average was less than 16 bushels. 



The Farmers' Cooperative Demonstration Work was developed 

 in 1 910 to include girls' clubs. That year girls' clubs were organ- 

 ized in South Carolina and Virginia in connection with boys' com 

 clubs, and 325 enrolled. The girls were started on one-tenth acre 

 gardens, specializing on tomatoes, but including some snap beans 

 and cucimibers. The objects of the girls' demonstration work was 

 to stimulate interest and wholesome cooperation in the home, to 

 earn money and get the education and view point necessary for the 

 ideal farm-life, to encourage the production of better food at lower 

 cost and conserve the surplus products, and to furnish earnest 

 teachers with a plan for aiding their pupils and their communities. 



In 191 1, more than 3,000 girls, representing eight states, joined 

 the clubs. Many of them put up more than 500 quarts of tomatoes 

 from their crops, besides ketchups, pickles and preserves. A few 

 put up nearly a thousand quarts each. 



The girls' clubs began by specializing on a single crop, tomatoes, 

 then including beans and cuamibers, then other vegetables and 

 fruits, progressing upward through meat, bread, milk products and 

 into home demonstration work. The first girls' canning club was 

 organized in Aiken County, South Carolina. 



In 191 5, the enrollment of boys and girls, both north and south, 

 was 250,000. 



In 19 1 6, home demonstration work, which began with girls' 

 canning clubs, had been taken up in 420 counties. The girls* clubs 

 in one county in Alabama put up in the four years ending in 19 16, 

 172,555 cans, valued at $29,400. 



Extension work was greatly forwarded by the passage of the 

 Smith-Lever act. May 8, 1914, which specifies that cooperative 



