PKOPAGANDA 29 



successfully introduced, to use their farms as de- 

 monstration farms for the instruction of their neigh- 

 bours. Apparently this method was very successful, 

 and figures of individual cases are given to show that 

 the farmers selected were enabled to more than double 

 their outturn, and immensely improve their position 

 in a very short time. The reader is asked to judge 

 the general results of the campaign by the fact 

 that the yield per acre of cotton and maize on the 

 demonstration farms was double the average yield for 

 the tract, that many valuable new crops were intro- 

 duced, and that the selected farmers were induced to 

 clean up their farms, improve their farm equipment 

 all round, build better houses and barns, and establish 

 good pastures. It would be possible in any country 

 to select a few of the best farmers and to show that 

 their outturns were largely in excess of the average, 

 but in this case the number of farms affected was 

 very large, and amounted to some 70,000 farms in 

 five States in the course of ten years. Taking the 

 results claimed at their face value, they are certainly 

 very remarkable, and are instructive chiefly for the 

 reason that they appear to indicate what can be ac- 

 complished by scientific propaganda, when the funda- 

 mental economic condition of the farmers is essentially 

 sound. In this case the holdings were apparently of 

 a suitable size and distribution, and admitted of a 

 well-ordered development for which the requisite 

 capital was forthcoming ; and there is no mention of 

 any crushing load of debt or conditions of irregular 



