Graeber himself could recall 

 instances where farmers turned 

 their dogs loose on county agents 

 to run them off. Caudill (1963) 

 described the early days of 

 agricultural extension in the 

 Cumberland Plateau of eastern 

 Kentucky as follows: 



For approximately 16 

 years in most counties — 

 from 1925 to 1941— the 

 agents worked zealously 

 to break the old and 

 ruinous pattern of land 

 use and abuse. Stony 

 silence and contempt were 

 often their reward. 

 Sometimes they were 

 openly ridiculed and at 

 least one was beaten by a 

 farmer who "already 

 knowed how to farm. ,, 

 But by slow degrees a 

 change of attitude began 

 to assert itself. 

 But then — nobody had promised 

 them a rose garden. 



During the lumbering period (1880 

 to 1930), extension forestry efforts 

 focused on farmers, beginning after 

 passage of the Smith-Lever Act of 

 1914. This law authorized 

 allocation of Federal funds on a 

 matching basis to the States to 

 establish agricultural extension 

 programs to carry useful and 

 practical information on agriculture 

 to rural people and secure its 

 application. The act put county 

 agents in the field and provided 

 funds to employ specialists to 

 assist them. It established the 



land-grant program in agriculture, 

 including forestry, as a triumvirate 

 of teaching, research, and 

 extension (Anderson 1922, Beale 

 1974, Extension Committee on 

 Organization and Policy 1976. 

 National Association of State 

 Universities and Land-Grant 

 Colleges 1978). 



Yet not much was done in 

 forestry. Although county agents 

 were active at times in Louisiana, 

 Mississippi, South Carolina, and 

 Tennessee, North Carolina appears 

 to have been the only State to 

 employ an extension forester by 

 1924 (Maughan 1939, Gillett 1947 

 unpubl., Keller 1979). 



Most Southern State programs got 

 underway following passage of the 

 Clarke-McNary Act of 1924. 

 Section 5 authorized allocation, on 

 a matching basis to the States, of 

 Federal funds earmarked to 

 provide forestry aid to farmers 

 "through advice, education, 

 demonstration and other similar 

 means." This act stimulated the 

 appointment of the first full-time 

 professional extension foresters by 

 the mid- 1 920' s in most Southern 

 States, although Louisiana did not 

 add one until the 1930's, and 

 Oklahoma, not until 1940. 



Though extension foresters were 

 few in number, they got things 

 done. During the 3 years that he 

 was employed in South Carolina, 

 Henry Tryon headed a crusade for 

 forest-fire protection that led 



48 



