THE DEMONSTRATION WORK 



it up on scientific food than to let it come up in the natural way. 

 They adopted that method. At the expiration of one month his 

 household inventoried, one wife, one sick baby, two wet nurses, two 

 well babies, four hired girls, three hired men. This is not criti- 

 cism on his knowledge, but that he had not learned how to use it." 



"Is it not true that the easy thing for us to do is to learn 

 general principles and theories, and the difficult part is to suc- 

 cessfully apply them? The ten commandments are soon acquired, 

 but it takes man's highest powers to practically apply them to the 

 problems of life and mould a character in conformity with them. 

 The pages of books are ink extracts from other people's lives; 

 nature compels us to live our own live&.*^ 



An article in the Review of Reviews in 1911 by Dr. 

 Wallace Buttrick, of the General Education Board, said that 

 it took seventy years of preparation for the seven year's 

 work done by this great agricultural philosopher and states- 

 man in establishing the Demonstration Work. 



Dr. Seaman A. Knapp was born at Schroon, Essex 

 County, New York, December 16th, 1833, and died in Wash- 

 ington, D. C, April 1st, 1911. 



Officially the Farmers' Co-operative Demonstration Work 

 was begun in Texas in the fall of 1903, at least that is the date 

 when the Department of Agriculture put up some money and 

 took an active hand in the administration thereof. At the be- 

 ginning of that year Dr. Knapp went to Terrell, Texas, solic- 

 ited $1,000 from the bankers and business men and offered 

 it as an indemnity to any farmer who would make a demon- 

 stration on his farm and accept advice and instruction when 

 the periodical visits were made to him by Dr. Knapp through- 

 out the year. Walter C. Porter volunteered. The boll weevil 

 was approaching and neighboring fields were being damaged 

 — and farmers generally were alarmed, and the whole busi- 

 ness world where the boll weevil struck was demoralized. The 

 demonstration on Walter Porter's farm was a success. He has 



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