DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



181 



tion of a pit silo, but rather to give suggestions concerning the best methods 

 of constructing them and how to feed silage. 



These definite results here mentioned are more or less spectacular. 

 They are no more fundamental than the more inconspicuous results, such 

 as the general educational work which is being accomplished by the demon- 

 stration meetings and campaigns of various kinds which are always in 

 progress. Numerous instances of the results of such educational work are 

 evident in every country having a farm bureau and every district where 

 an efficient agricultural agent is employed. 



A farm bureau and one or more agricultural agents in a county will 

 focus the attention of the people of that county upon agriculture as nothing 

 else can do and in proportion as the attention of the people is thus directed 

 in the same proportion they will be wideawake to the abundant agricultural 

 literature found not only in bulletins from the experiment stations and the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, but in the exceedingly valuable 

 farm journals coming to the rural homes from week to week. That in- 

 formation thus gained by personal study is followed by action in a large 

 percent of cases is certain. 



Demonstration Movement State and Nation Wide. 



The demonstration movement is not limited to farm bureau work, but 

 is state and nation wide. In every state where any considerable number of 

 county agents are employed, the need for specialists on the staff of the 

 agricultural colleges to support the county agent work and to conduct state- 

 wide demonstrations along various lines is keenly felt. Consequently, the 

 extension forces are being augmented by specialists in all important lines 

 as far as funds and eligible men permit. Many of these conduct demon- 

 strations in certain districts of the state much as the demonstrations are 

 conducted in the counties by county agricultural agents. Others spend some 

 time in holding agricultural meetings on farms where the illustrative ma- 

 terial is close at hand, in this way reinforcing the lecture work with labor- 

 atory illustration. Other agents spend much of their time helping the ag- 

 ricultural agents in solving problems arising in their counties with which 

 they are not entirely familiar. No agent, of course, can expect to be a 

 specialist in very many lines of agricultural practice, although he is sup- 

 posed to know one or more lines of work thoroughly and to have a fair 

 general information in most of them. He must, therefore, call upon other 

 specialists in places where he himself is weak. The county demonstration 

 movement through farm bureaus and the statewide demonstrations, there- 

 fore, are reinforcing each other. 



Support of Cbunty, State and Nation Needed. 



Tt has been the general history of many educational movements that at 

 the start men who have seen the need of them have helped to finance them 

 and later, when the people as a whole have recognized their value, their 

 continuation has been provided for by appropriations of public funds by 

 county, state, and nation. This has been true of the demonstration move- 

 ment in the South, where counties and states are lending a helping hand 



