134 



The Dawn of a New Constructive Era 



Boys' Live 

 Stock Clubs 

 and County 

 Agents 

 Praised 



Grass a 

 Friend and 

 Asset to the 

 Farmer 



value of swine in Georgia in six years amounts in round numbers 

 to about $18,000,000. 



This gives some idea of the forcefulness of an educational 

 campaign organized and conducted along certain lines. While 

 all of the increase is not. attributable to any one agency, the boys' 

 live stock clubs have exerted a marvelous influence by creating 

 a renewed interest in swine husbandry in inducing the fathers to 

 purchase pure-bred animals for them, and thereby raising the 

 quality of the stock kept on many farms. Naturally, the various 

 organizations concerned have endeavored in every way to en- 

 courage the use of preventive serum, with the result that large 

 numbers of outbreaks of this disease have been checked at the 

 start, and hundreds of farmers taught how to use the serum 

 properly. The county agents are undoubtedly to be credited with 

 having accomplished a work along this line worth millions of 

 dollars to the swine owners of the state. They were the men on 

 the ground when the outbreaks occurred and their prompt action 

 and public service work in this direction cannot be too highly 

 commended. I have no doubt but that they have done an equally 

 important work in every other Southern state. 



Among the things which must be done is to teach the South- 

 ern farmer to quit fighting grass. Grass should be his most val- 

 uable friend and most highly prized asset. The cotton farmer 

 has been taught to fight grass from infancy ; therefore, it seems 

 that he is unwilling to have any of it on any part of his land 

 w^hether he devotes it to cotton or not. One can not grow and 

 maintain live stock successfully without grass. It is needless to 

 enter into detail as to the great variety of grasses and clovers 

 which may be provided for summer and winter grazing and 

 which would shortly clothe our hills and prevent their erosion if 

 given opportunity to do so. They would also add materially to 

 the carrying capacity of the land, shorten the length of time we 

 would have to stall feed our animals, enable us to improve the 

 quality of our live stock, and give us the necessary succulent food 

 for the cheap maintenance of live stock in the summer which 

 silage affords in the winter. 



Speaking of the educational campaign, it is proper to state 

 that hundreds of silos have been built in Georgia in the last few 

 years as a result of the work done by the animal husbandry di- 

 vision and the extension force of the State College of Agriculture. 

 Plans have been furnished to thousands of farmers and they have 



