Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-04-19
CAPTAINS OF. AGRICULTURE.-By Frederic j. Haskin

w TASHINGTON April 14-The people of San
NJ Miguel county, New Mexico, nearly all of
w whom are of Spanish descent and speak
Spanish, contributed their share to the wartime
food supply of the nation by producing last year
one bushel more of beans per than ever be-
fore. incidentally, this netted them nearly $780,
600 dollars extra profit, and they have put in
still larger crop of beans this year
The county agent of the Department of Agri-
culture, who is himself a native, named Con
zales, deserves much credit for this remarkable
Increase in bean production. He pointed out to
the people that the pinto beans, which they and
their forefathers had been raising for genera
hons, varied greatly in size and quality and
showed them the advantages of sorting out the
best beans to as seed. Boan-sorting quickly
only was the bean crop of San Miguel greatly in
creased, but it's fame went abroad, and farmers
all over the state sent to the county for seed
beans
This wartime work of county agent in San
Miguel county, New Mexico is chosen because it
is typical. County agents doing the same
work all over the United States. In the north
ern and western states alone the number of
county agents in the field has been increased
since entered the war from about 500 to
1900 There is now an agent in almost every
agricultural county in the United States. 1t is
not too much to say that without these men the
increase in food production which has enabled
America to feed herself and her allies would not
have been possible. Not that the farmers have
lacked enterprise but that some means Of direct
ing and co-ordnating their efforts has been
necessity, and the county agents have furnished
that means. They constitute one of the most
important ana one or the leaSt-knOWn OrganlZa-
tons for the prosecution of the
Few Americans who are not farmers know
just what county agent is He is a ap-
pointed and directed by the federal department
of agriculture, paid partly by the federal and
partly by the state governments, and working
comparatively with the state agricultural college
to teach the farmers better methods of raising
and marketing their crops So much for him
officially. Personally, he is usually a farmer,
an ex-farmer, who has had scientific train
ing in agricultural college. He spends his
days riding around the county in oliver"
comforting with farmers and holding demonstra-
tons-especially the latter. Every farmer has to
be shown thing before he will believe II, there
by proving that farmers are like other people.
For example, the farmers In Illinois could
be convinced that they always lost about 10 per
cent OF their oat crop because it was infested
with rust. The rust inconspicuous; they
didn't notice it, although bulletins from Wash
1ngton assured them it was there. Then
the county agent. His method to induce
one farmer, say Bill Smith to treat a part of his
seed oats with formaldehyde to kill the rust and
the oats matured all of the other farmers were
invited to come and the difference between
the treated and untreated grain. When it was
threshed they were shown the difference in the
yield. Now practically all Of the oats planted in
Illinois treated with formaldehyde, and the
rust menace is largely thing of the past
The county agent is a walking embodiment
Of applied science He is the refutation of the
argument that the department Of agriculture
deals too much in theory But he is interesting
just at present chiefly because of what he is
doing to meet the wartime emergency.
When we entered the there were less