THE DEMONSTRATION WORK 



leges are justifying the ''M" in their titles in a way that 

 they did not, and could not, in their early days. A county 

 agent must be a general, ambidextrous engineer, skilled in the 

 rudiments of drainage, mechanics, electricity and other farm 

 matters. Much emphasis has been laid, in some quarters, upon 

 surveys, but the demonstration agent must make all kinds of 

 surveys from making plats of boys' club acres, to the study 

 of the entire crop and live stock industries in all parts of his 

 county. 



In Sweden the itinerant agricultural instructors are called 

 agronomists. Our county agents must be agronomists, horti- 

 culturists, entomologists, especially in work with bees and cer- 

 tain insects which affect the crops of their counties, and 

 veterinarians, when fighting contagious diseases among live 

 stock. 



In some states the Director of Extension and other au- 

 thorities have made rather general use of the word ''leader" 

 as a title for agents in charge of the Junior Demonstration 

 "Work as well as for certain supervising agents on the state 

 staff. This title is open to the same criticism as that of 

 ' ' adviser. ' ' An agent who has assumed a superior title is put 

 to a disadvantage from the first. Leadership must be proved, 

 and not simply claimed. How glad people are to follow real 

 leadership and how readily do they recognize it! But this 

 job does not seek merely to develop leadership in the officials 

 who have charge. Far from it. It is the prime duty of such 

 officials to teach through others, so there may naturally be 

 a development and distribution of leadership. This idea is 

 well brought out in the Banker-Farmer of October, 1919, when 

 it says: 



" *We look on our county agent as our leader/ says a man who 

 ought to be leader in his country's agricultural affairs but isn't. The 

 county which depends on its county agent for leadership is making 



[Ii8] 



