THE DEMONSTRATION WORK 



is important that planters be visited by the Local Agents at least 

 once per month to see that they are carrying out instructions. 



The first year we ask a man to plant as a demonstration from 

 three to five acres and work it exactly according to our instructions. 

 This is used as an object lesson in that community, the farmer using 

 his own land and standing all the expenses of the cultivation of the 

 demonstration as the crop is his, except the first year when we 

 furnish him the best selected seed we can get. After the first year he is 

 taught to believe it is not a demonstration unless it is profitable and 

 when the farmer proves this point to himself he will readily take it 

 up on his own place. When the Demonstration Work was first 

 started with a few agents in Texas we did not have them divided 

 into classes; but personally supervised them from our office which 

 was then located in Houston. 



To the Y. M. C. A. man he wrote : 



"These improvements in farm practices and rural conditions are 

 made effective by a thoroughly organized system of rural teaching 

 by which the farmers are induced to work out the several problems 

 upon their farms and in the communities. 



This work under Government control was first undertaken in 

 1903 in Texas to teach better cultural methods as a means of com- 

 bating the Mexican boll weevil. It was found of such wide applica- 

 tion that it was broadened to help general conditions on the farm. 

 It finally attracted the attention of the General Education Board as 

 a means of improving agricultural conditions, and in 1906 the Board 

 inaugurated cooperation by appropriating funds to be used under 

 the direction of the United States Department of Agriculture to 

 extend these methods in non-boll weevil territory and thus supplement 

 Government appropriations. The plan adopted at the beginning of 

 the work, namely, the demontration of the principal crops by the 

 farmer, on his own farm, at his personal expense, under instruction 

 given by the agent of this Department, has been found so universally 

 efficient that it has been continued. As the greater product of the 

 field is evident and belongs to the farmer he is readily convinced of 

 the superiority of intensive methods and no amount of argument can 

 change his views. 



This work has grown in seven years from one demonstration 

 farm at Terrell, Texas, in 1903, and one travelling agent, to 13,471 



[28] 



