The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1922-05-26
FLETCHER TELLS
OF LATAH COUNTY
WRITES LEAD ARTICLE FOR sIDA-
HO FARMER" ON COOPERATIVE
EXTENSION SERVICE


The Idaho Farmer Idaho's week
1y farm magazine, carries as it's lead
story in the issue of May Is, 1922 All
article by O. S. Fletcher, Latah coun-
ty agricultural agent, entitled Coop
erative Extension Service Gets Re
suits" The statement is made that
"Latah county farmers cooperate with
the county agent and specialists for
worth while achievements"
Mr.. Fletcher in his able and inter
esting story tells the history of the
remarkable growth of the Latah coun-
ty farm bureau since 1918. Portions
of Mr.. Fletcher's article follows:
Service Starts IN 1918
County agent work, or cooperative
extension service, in Latah county
was started in 1918 with the organiza-
tion of the county farm bureau and,
80 far as possible has always been
carried on through that organization.
The Latah county farm bureau was
organized to cooperate with the Uni
versity OF Idaho, the state experiment
station and the United States depart
ment of agriculture in promoting the
business of agriculture in Latah cOun-
sty, and the development of the farm
bureau and county agent work have
gone forward together.
when the writer took up his du-
ties as county agent for Latah county
in September, 1913, he found farm
bureau with membership of 242, but
with no regularly organized commun
tiles and no community programs of
work. The county program of work
was organized as a temporary one.
From that time the work has grad
ually grown until in 1921 there were
"a communities regularly organized
for county agent work. The "a conf
munities adopted an average Of five
different lines of work, so that to-
tai of 12O local projects were adopted
Tor the last year. One hundred and
nine farmers lead these 120 local pro-
jects, some men leading i'll two pro-
jects. Lines of work taken up in each
community, the aim being to work on
projects that were of the greatest To-
cal Importance Farmers of each COM
munity decided upon the work for that
community and selected their local
leaders. The county program of work
was a composite of the community
programs of work.
The Leading Projects
"Pest control, grain Standardization,
weed control, live stock improvement
and poultry management are the chief
projects of the farm bureau and CO.
operative extension service in Lut8n
county. The first three OF these were
part of the temporary program ldop-
ted in 1918 and became a part Of
the regular program as soon as the
various communities organized and
adopted projects. Land clearing, po-
tato improvement and crop reporting
have also been adopted as projects.
Much work is done each year that
does not fall under any Of these pro-
jects and is designated as tmiscel-
laneous." A complete review CT the
work done during the last four years
on these projects would take more
space than can be devoted to this
article, so work reviewed will be main
ly that done during 1921.
Results Of Cooperation
"In the work that has been carried
on during the past four years the
county agent has been given all pos
sible encouragement by the assist
ance and encouragement by the pro-
gressive farmers of the county, the
executive committee of the county
farm bureau, the board of county com
and the administrative
staff and specialists Of the extension
and college of agriculture of
the University of Idaho. The results
that have been obtained could not have
been achieved without this coopera
ton"