2. Use seed of the best variety, intelligently selected and carefully stored.

3. In cultivated crops, give rows and the plants in the rows a space suited to the plant, the soil and the climate.

4. Use intensive tillage during the growing period of the crop. 5. Secure a high content of humus in the soil by the use of legumes, barnyard manure, farm refuse and commercial fertilizers. 6. Carry out a system of crop rotation with a winter cover crop on southern farms.

7. Accomplish more work in a day by using more horse power and better implements.

8. Increase the farm stock to the extent of utilizing all the waste products and idle lands on the farm.

farm.

9. Produce all the food required for the men and animals on the

10. Keep an account of each farm product in order to know from which the gain or loss arises.

These became very widely known in the South and formed the basis for much of the work done by the agents.

The demonstrations were extended from crop to crop. With the fundamental idea that it was necessary to readjust the agriculture of the South and make it more profitable and to make the country life better, Dr. Knapp taught the great lesson of diversification or a self-sustaining agriculture. The preservation of the fertility of the soil and the furnishing of the living of the people on the farm from its products, were two necessary changes if the South was to prosper. With these things taken care of, that great section was well supplied with cash crops which it could produce and exchange in the markets of the world for the money with which to improve her life and her industries. The trouble was that the South was producing these splendid crops of cotton, tobacco, rice and sugar and exchanging them for her living.

REACHING MORE PEOPLE

One of the problems was to reach as many farmers as possible. The county agent could not possibly carry on a demonstration on every farm in the county. Two plans proved effective. The first was to rely upon the fact that farmers, like other people, would imitate what they saw tried with success. It became very evident that one good demonstration in a neighborhood reached more people than the farmer who carried on the demonstration. A varying number of the neighbors copied the practices and profited by the lesson because it was simple, and close by where they could see it. But some effort was also made to assist this process. Farmers around the demonstration were notified of the agent's visit and invited to come to the demonstration farm for a conference. These informal meetings were called field meetings or field schools. Neighboring farmers who were sufficiently interested agreed to carry on a demonstration on their own farms and to obtain their instruction from meeting the agent at the demonstration farms. These men who were not visited were called "coöperators." Out of these meetings grew neighborhood organizations of farmers or community clubs which now form an important part of the work.

BOYS' CLUBS

About 1908 Dr. Knapp first began what was known as the Boys' Corn Club Movement in the South. It is true that there had been corn clubs in a number of the northern states and in one or two of the southern states prior to that time. However, Dr. Knapp should receive the credit for systematizing this very important and excellent piece of work. He established it on an acre contest basis and arranged for the giving of prizes, not on the maximum yield alone, but upon the maximum yield at minimum cost, with a written essay describing the work done and an exhibit of the product. The objects of the Boys' Corn Club Work were:

1. To afford the rural teacher a simple and easy method of teaching practical agriculture in the schools in the way it must be acquired to be of any real service; namely, by actual work upon the farm.

2. To prove that there is more in the soil than the farmer has ever gotten out of it. To inspire boys with a love of the land by showing them how they can get wealth out of it by tilling it in a better way, and thus to be helpful to the family and the neighborhood, and

3. To give the boys a definite, worthy purpose and to stimulate a friendly rivalry among them.

The first effort in this direction was in Mississippi when Mr. W. H. Smith, then County Superintendent of Schools for Holmes County, did the work in coöperation with the demonstration forces. Results of this work were extended gradually to the other states until the Boys' Corn Club Movement as a part of the general scheme of education through demonstration became a very large factor in southern agricultural work.

The Boys' Club Work was organized mainly through the schools. The county agent was recognized as the agricultural authority and gave the boys instruction. The school teachers generally acted as the organizers of the clubs. The county superintendent was a good coöperator. The state superintendent often assisted materially with the work. Prizes were contributed by local business men; the bankers became interested and often gave considerable money for prizes for these contests. The local contest and the county and state contest soon became very important and interesting events. In 1909 four state prize winners received free trips to Washington, D. C. For a number of years these annual trips attracted much attention. This plan was abandoned in 1914 for the better system of scholarship prizes. Since then the chief annual prize in the state has been a scholarship at the Agricultural College. Pig Clubs, Baby Beef Clubs, Clover Clubs, etc., are but a natural evolution which came with the years.

In 1911 the number of county agents had reached 583, the number of demonstrators and coöperators had reached 100,000, and the number of boys approximately 51,000.

GIRLS' CLUBS

In 1910 Dr. S. A. Knapp began to develop a part of the work for women and girls. It was his belief that he had thus far planned the work for the father and son. He desired to complete the work by doing something for the mother and daughter. In October, 1910, he wrote:

The Demonstration Work has proven that it is possible to reform, by simple means, the economic life and the personality of the farmer on the farm. The Boys' Corn Clubs have likewise shown how to turn the attention of the boy toward the farm. There remains the home itself and its women and girls. This problem can not be approached directly. The reformer who tells the farmer and his wife that their entire home system is wrong will meet with failure. With these facts in view I have gone to work among the girls to teach one simple and straightforward lesson which will open their eyes to the possibilities of adding to the family income through simple work in and about the home.

Beginning in the states of South Carolina, Virginia and Mississippi, there were developed that year a number of Girls' Canning Clubs. In these clubs the girls were banded together, each to produce one-tenth of an acre of tomatoes on their own land, and, when their crop was matured, they were taught to can the product for use in winter. This work increased rapidly. The funds devoted to it the first year were a little less than $5,000, the next year $25,000.

This work for girls seemed to appeal to the people. It was taken up with great enthusiasm. The best trained school teachers and well educated and trained farm women were employed as agents and instructed in the work. Home gardening and the canning of fruits and vegetables for winter use appealed to the people as good education and good business. Many of the girls made surprisingly good profits from their demonstrations. They were taught to keep an account and to put up their canned product in standard weight cans, with full pack, and only the finest and most perfect of ripe fruits and vegetables. The result was to give them a ready market, a cash income for the family from a new source, and an interesing occupation. A new industry was thus established. To the canning clubs were added the poultry clubs a little later.

Two features of the Girls' Clubs should be mentioned. First, that they developed the girls and made them skillful and self-reliant. The canning club girls were the best students at school. Second, the very idea of the club, the association of the girls together, the meetings for canning, and all of the activities of the clubs, furnished a much needed social life which was greatly appreciated. Many of the meetings for actual instruction were heralded as social gatherings. The girls made their own aprons and caps (called uniforms) and attracted much favorable attention.

We hear much these past few years about the "mother-daughter" movement. The mothers in the South helped the daughters and were much interested in all that was going on in the clubs. At every meeting of the club for its canning lesson, the mothers were sure to be present and to take some part with their daughters. In the home, while the girls were required to do the actual canning in their competitions for prizes, the mothers were always watching and adopting all that they found good in the lessons for the girls. In this way much of natural prejudice against such an intimate kind of service was broken down and the woman agent found a ready welcome into the home and an opportunity to render service to the mother as well as the daughter.

THE WORK FOR WOMEN

In the first planning of the work for girls, it was expected to pave the way for the work with women by taking up the work for their daughters. Much help was given to the mothers before any definite work was actually outlined for them. About the year 1914 a few of the women agents began definite work with farm women. These first steps were generally in the direction of labor-saving devices for the home, such as home-made fireless cookers, etc., and the simple preparation of the girls' canned products for the table. The next year many of the women agents took up the work with women, and by the spring of 1916 there were over 7,000 women in the South demonstrating for themselves and their neighbors some new device for the saving of labor, some new method of cooking, or some item of home improvement.

As the club idea had succeeded so well with the girls, and as the idea of community organizations had taken strong hold in the work with farmers, the women were generally encouraged to organize neighborhood clubs. The practical side of the work was not neglected. Every member of the club was doing the work at home. Every one of them was profiting by the lesson and putting the new or improved method into practice. But the club brought them together occasionally. Its meetings were something to look forward to and hence an important part of the work.

COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS

In the broad development of the work as a whole the county agents, both men and women, naturally divide their activities into three general classes:

First: Their actual demonstrations with farmers, their wives, and the boys and girls.

Second: The giving out of general information through speeches, meetings, etc.

Third: Efforts to stimulate organization.

In the South organization work had proceeded mainly on a community basis. Community interest and activity have been often stimulated by the demonstrations, and the collecting of people