White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1935-08-01

one of my handicaps All I could gel
OF college was two years, the special
course at State. know what I want
to say all right but most of the time
just have to founder around until
people begin to see what I'm after anc
can work the thing out for themselves
But that's what I'd have wanted te
have said. That's always been my foun-
dation idea of the county agents Job
to build up the oncoming crowd; to
help people, especially young people
grow
My father had lot of gifts ]
could use. Wonderful personality. Won
derful way of greeting people, telling
jokes and so on. A quiet man but he'd
have made the best county agent you
ever saw. still get some of my best
ideas from the things he did for me.
He gave me responsibility as soon as
could walk. Always consulted me,
never tried to overshine me. He was
| more like an older brother to me than
| q father.
II was the only boy. When I was
eighteen fast Pennsylvania flyer hit
his wagon. Before could reach him
| he was gone. The hardest thing I ever
had to do in my life was to go up to
the house and tell my mother"
John had a ten-year fight of it
single-hande on that farm, but he
built up herd of purebred Jerseys,
and a retail milk trade, and: "By 1915
had things coming pretty good. MY
neighbors were all shipping milk to
Pittsburgh. They got into big row
with the Pittsburgh dealers.
II had my own trade. The Pitts
burgh price was nothing to me. At
first couldn't see where it was any
OF my business. But all along my milk
route kept thinking about it and I
finally decided to go to the meeting.
II got there ten or maybe fifteen
minutes late. They were still wrangling
about who was to preside. Somebody
sang out, Here's Hervey! He's neut-
raj They made me chairman.
I'm eighteen months we had Pitts
burgh's milk supply cut way down.
The papers there were calling us baby
killers and the city people were all up
IN arms. We had to get somebody down
there right away to make them see our
side of it-that farmers have children,
too, and that this was our fight to
feed, clothe and educate our children.
They put it on me. I had to go.
walked away from ten acres of hay,
down in the field, and I didn't get
home again for thirty days, not until
the strike was over.
When the war came all my help
was drafted. sold my herd and took
temporary job as wartime organizer
for the farm bureau
The war ended and they offered me
this job here I took it but / surely was
afraid of it'll"
He had been five years in Washing
ton county when, an amateur extern
sion specialist, I began riding day
coaches over all Ohio. found no Ohio
extension worker who did not by that
time agree that he was the best coun-
ty agent in the state. Here are some
of the things that, at the end of ten
years, he had done:
Induced the dairymen of the whole
county to pull together on one breed
of dairy and another of beef cattle.
and made the county known as a Jer-
sey center.
Transformed poultry methods and
brought considerably more egg money
to the small hill farms.
Set going throughout those hill
townships, without the help of a coun-
ty home demonstration agent-through
volunteer local leaders, trained by
visiting specialist from the college
only - practical and thoroughgoing
modern knowledge on clothing con-
struction, child care, nutrition, first
aid and care of the sick
Without the help of a county club |
agent, he had run his annual 4-H club |
enrolment (junior extension) up to
900. In one year % graduates" from
his clubs enrolled for the four-year
course in agriculture at the State uni
versity Boys who had passed through |
his clubs, then through the university
were now back in the county as home
bred leaders. One was president of the |
county Jersey association; another,
president of the strongest local farm
ers' club. A third was teaching voca-
tional agriculture in the high school.
A fourth was president of the winter
farmers Institutes, another Hervy in
novation, propelled entirely by local
talent-music, readings, talks and all.
The county had a club camp, the
ground and shacks donated or paid for
entirely by resident farmers. The peo-
pie who built it called it Camp Hervida,
to honor John Hervey and his wife,
Ida. Two hundred children had a
blanket-and-campfire vacation there
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