OTHER EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES 379 



cepted and Dr. Knapp was furnished with funds from the Gen- 

 eral Education Board in addition to the funds from Congress. 

 With the federal funds work was done in boll weevil territory 

 and the territory immediately in advance of the weevil, which 

 was gradually migrating from year to year north and east 

 through the cotton states. With the funds of the General Edu- 

 cation Board work of the same kind for the general improve- 

 ment of agriculture and rural economic conditions was begun 

 in Mississippi and Virginia in 1906, and was extended to Ala- 

 bama, South Carolina, Georgia, and North Carolina in 1907. 

 The direct federal funds carried < the work in Texas, Louisiana, 

 Oklahoma and Arkansas. As the weevil advanced eastward, 

 the states were transferred in succession from the General Edu- 

 cation Board fund to the federal fund. The funds from both 

 of these sources increased from year to year as the work grew 

 in popularity. In 1909 the federat funds amounted to $102,000 

 and those from the General Education Board to $76,500. 



In 1906 and 1907 such was the demand for the work that it 

 was impossible to reach all who were insisting that they needed 

 the help. When advised that financial assistance was the limit- 

 ing factor in spreading the work, business men in some of the 

 counties offered to assist in the payment of the salary of an 

 agent if his activities could be restricted to their county. This 

 was done. It had been fully realized by Dr. Knapp that the 

 work would be improved by limiting the territory served by 

 each agent. This led to the adoption of the title "County 

 Agent" afterward so well known in the South. 



In 1909 the state of Mississippi took the lead in recognizing 

 the new type of education by enacting a law under which the 

 county might pay part of the salary of the agent. In the years 

 from 1909 to 1915, every southern state having power to grant 

 such authority to the county passed some sort of law permitting 

 the county government to cooperate with the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture in this work and to pay part or all 

 the salary of the county agent. State appropriations were made 

 also in a number of cases, the first in 1911 in Alabama. 



The growth of the work was phenomenal. It soon became the 

 rule rather than the exception for the county to furnish at 

 least one-.half of the money necessary for the salary and expenses 



