Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-06-16
DEMONSTRATION FARMS.
Uncle Sam Started a Lot; Now Busi.
ness Firms Are Following Suit.

ness Firms Are Following Suit.
Judging by the way demonstration
work Is spreading all Americans must
have a strain of the Missouri stock.
Everybody wants to be shown. Tho
farmers don't always want 1t at first.
They are apt to think they know all
there Is to be known about their own
job. But they soon learn that the
demonstrator can show them a trick or
two.
The government has been starting
demonstration farms all over the coun-
try. Now one Of the greatest manu-
facturers Of fam machinery Is taking
hand. The Il ca Of the United States
demonstration work Is to get first a
farm work und:r government methods,
the farm being in charge of a paid
agent or county demonstrator, who
works under the direction of a state
agent. Last year some thirty counties
in Georgia were under this system.
The first farm in each county started
becomes known as the government
demonstration farm. AS much public
ity is given as possible, and farmers
are invited to come to that farm, watch
the methods Of cultivation, see the re-
suits in the growing crops and COM
pare these results with their own crops
under the older methods.
Another phase Of this work is that
by which the county demonstrator in
duces farmers throughout the county
to work one acre according to schedule
methods, just to try 1t out. Every
farm on which the improved methods
specified are used becomes an object
lesson to that immediate neighbor-
hood.
when our firm established test
and plant breeding farm in Troup
county, Ca" writes a southern seeds
man in Progress, I'VE had no idea of
making it a demonstration farm. In
carrying on that farm, however, we
used what we knew to be the best
methods, although they ran counter to
the general cotton growing practice
of that section. While the farmers
who watched our first years efforts
did not condemn our methods as bad,
they did express the opinion that we
were taking a heap Of unnecessary
trouble
when our crops turned out about
double the yield an acre that theirs did
they were convinced that there was
something in those better methods af-
ter all, and they are now followed In
greater or less degree in that vicin-
ity. We were told recently that the
cotton crop of that part Of Troup coun-
ty has increased some 20 per cent
through the use Of better methods
since our work began
The machinery making company Is
establishing headquarters for farm ma
chinery demonstrations in three of the
southeastern states this year. In Mis-
sissippi and Alabama two sixty acre
farms have been established. In Geor-
gia an arrangement has been made to
carry on this farm machinery demon
stration work on the Hastings farm OF
3, 900 acres at Trimble, Ga.
The company will erect a modei
building for the housing or storage OF
farm machinery when not in use, en-
couragng in this way the right care
of machinery and prolonging its active
life. In that building will be assem-
bled every class of implement manu-
factured by the concern that is adapted
to use i'm this section, and these imple-
ments will be in regular use on this
farm, open at all times to the inspec-
ton of the public.
If any farmer wishes to see how a
machine works, whether it will answer
his purpose or not, he will at any time
have an opportunity of inspecting 1t IN
field use before he purchases. All THIS
demonstration work of various kinds
farm machinery. fertilizer, better
seeds. new kinds of crops-is educa-
tional, the kind of education that pays
in better financial and social conditions
in the country, which in turn dement's
the business interests of the city.