CHAPTER XXXII 

 THE COUNTY AGRICULTURAL AGENT 



SEVERAL new agencies have recently entered the field 

 of agricultural extension education and rural develop- 

 ment : some of these are (1) the county agricultural agent, 

 and (2) the county farm bureau. The latter consists of an 

 organization of the business men and farmers of a county 

 for the purpose of furnishing a kind of clearing house for 

 agricultural information and an organization through which 

 a county agent may work. The county agent is an agri- 

 cultural leader whose business is to organize, lead, instruct 

 and give agricultural direction and advice to the farmers 

 or to pupils and teachers of agriculture in the schools of 

 the county. 



1. The Work of the County Agent 



First work in the South. The advent of the Mexican 

 boll weevil in the cotton fields of Texas was responsible 

 for the beginning of this work. So great were its ravages 

 that in 1905 and 1906 the United States Department of 

 Agriculture employed Doctor Seaman A. Knapp to investi- 

 gate what could be done to exterminate the boll weevil and 

 to demonstrate to the southern farmer that cotton could be 

 grown in spite of the pest. 



Doctor Knapp soon discovered that printed circulars 

 of instruction, public lectures and other former means of 

 agricultural instruction would not accomplish what was 

 needed to be done. So he determined upon a plan of field 

 and farm demonstration work for the purpose of showing 

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