Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1916-07-21
The County Agent

No country ever spent SO much
in the same space of time to help
agriculture as the United States
spent during the period from
1900 TO 1915. Agricultural
schools were multiplied and en-
larged, laboratories established,
costly expeditions undertaken
and a vast amount of information
published by printing press and
lecture.
How much did the farmer gain
by it2 Not SO much as he ought
to have gained, he sometimes
thinks, and he is inclined to be
little skeptical of the value of in.
yestigation and theoretical teach.
ing.
In point of fact, that period
was largely a time of collecting
data and teaching teachers. The
Interpretation of results to the
farmer is just beginning, and the
county agent is proving to be the
interpreter. He was needed for
two reasons. 1t is one thing for a
farmer TO read an agricultural
fact in a book and quite another
to have it brought home to him
by the living voice that cannot on
ly state it as a fact but relate it
to other facts and answer ques
tiOns about it. This the county
agent does. Then, too, his pres
ence generally brings about son e
measure OF cooperation amor z
the farmer, who through their
county association must contribute
to his support. That is a step in
/ direction that the farmer must
follow if he is to profit as he
should by the increasing demand
for farm products,
The ordinary farmer is a highly
lndiyidualistic person. He may
indeed sometimes combine with
his neighbors for social or politi
cal purposes, but far moIe he
deeds to co operate with them for
the standardizing Of his products,
for the economical purchase Of
seed, fertilizer and machinery of
good quality, for the advantage
GUS sale of his crops, for the profit
that he may gain from his neigh
DORIS experience, and possibly
that he may help finance his oper-
atoms by means of cooperative
credit.
The coming of the county agent
does more than to compel a meas.
ure of co operation Tor his sup.
port; he is likely to enlist the
help Of railway officials, bankers
and merchants, and thus practi,
cally to show the way in which
! the several classes of the commu-
nifty depend on one another. Be
yOnd that he may persuade the
farmers of a township to breed a
certain kind of hogs by showing
them that, if they work to-
gether, they can afford to obtain
the services of pure bred sireS,
and that by standardizing their
breed of hogs, sheep or COWS, and
| particularly their fruits and Ger.
tain vegetables, they can win and
hold a better market. He EN-
phaSizes the necessity of good
fertilizer and clean seed; in one
instance lately recorded the dis
count obtained on d single CO.
operative order fer seed was al.
most large enough to pay the
agents salary,
1t is from the agent that many
a farmer has learned the real char
acteristics Of his soil and how to
remedy its defects; and as we
have recently pointed out he fire.
quently reports the successful
methods of one neighbor to an
other, so that the farm that does
not pay is put into helpful touch
with the farm that does. More
than three hundred counties now
have these county agents, and a
new profession seems to be open.
ing to the graduates of our agri.
cultural schools. Youths Com
panion.