THE DEMONSTRATION WORK 



publications had been wasted by indiscriminate distribution. 

 Among the Congressmen who had kept in close touch with the 

 Demonstration Work, even to the point of traveling with 

 county agents on their rounds of duty, were Hon. A. F. Lever, 

 of South Carolina, and Senator Smith, of Georgia. These 

 gentlemen, as well as many others, distinctly stated in their 

 addresses in the Senate and House of Representatives, that 

 they favored appropriations for the Extension Work because 

 of their personal and intimate knowledge of the success of 

 Dr. Knapp's work in the South. Articles were published at 

 the same time in leading magazines of the country showing 

 Dr. Knapp 's methods and the successful results. 



In an official report which Mr. Lever submitted from the 

 Committee on Agriculture to the House of Representatives on 

 December 8, 1913, he said : 



"Various agencies have been tried as a connecting link, with 

 various degrees of success. The printed page is insufficient. The 

 bulletin and agricultural press have not been found effective in 

 reaching and impressing the farmer in the remote districts, who 

 most needs the information. That late Dr. Seaman A. Knapp, 

 founder of the Demonstration Work in this country, said: 



* There is much knowledge applicable and helpful to husbandry 

 that is annually worked out and made available by the scientists in 

 the United States Department of Agriculture and in the State 

 Experiment Stations and by individual farmers upon their farms, 

 which is sufficient to readjust agriculture and place it upon a basis 

 of greater profit, to reconstruct the rural home, and to give country 

 life an attraction, a dignity, and a potential influence it has never 

 received. This body of knowledge cannot be conveyed and delivered 

 by a written message to the people in such a way that they will 

 accept and adopt it. This can only be done by personal appeal and 

 ocular demonstration. ' 



''His judgment was correct, and to meet the deficiency of the 

 bulletin and agricultural press in impressing the farmer there arose 

 the system of undertaking to do this by means of the lecture 



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