DEVELOPMENT OF THE FARM DEMONSTRATION AGENCY 



haps center on Irish potatoes, others on sweet potatoes, others on 

 cabbage, others on onions, others on fruit, etc., with the idea of mak- 

 ing a specialty of producing crops in sufficient quantities to attract 

 the larger buyers on favorable terms." 



The clearing house phases of the work of the Demonstra- 

 tion Agents are what scientific men call a constant. Chambers 

 of commerce have their secretaries, but the farmers have not, 

 until recently, had their headquarters. The efficient agent 

 naturally becomes an executive secretary for the agricultural / 

 interests of the county. It was observed early in the history 

 of the county agent that he was constantly called upon to be 

 a commissioner of agriculture for the county. His office is 

 a distributing center for helpful ideas, better seed and im- 

 proved stock. Since the county agent has become a kind of 

 rural free delivery of agriculture, the bulletins and circulars 

 of the Department and the colleges reach their proper destina- 

 tion without such appalling waste as formerly occurred. It 

 is getting to be the ordinary thing to find in the agent 's office 

 a classified alphabetical cabinet containing literature suitable 

 for the conditions in that county. The agent makes special 

 distribution at certain seasons and during special drives and 

 campaigns. 



With constant intercourse and communication on the part 

 of this itinerant commissioner, it was to be expected that he 

 should become a medium of exchange. That is one definition 

 of money, but here is a medium of more value than money. 

 A farmer started to put in an order for 25 bushels of cow- 

 peas three hundred miles away. The agent came along and 

 told him that his neighbor on the other side of the town had 

 them and was anxious to sell them at a reasonable price. It 

 has happened many times that the agent has caused the buy- 

 ing of good seed corn, near where it was to be grown, and at 



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