Part 3

It has been extension experience that negroes are especially responsive to the demonstration method, because of their faith, confidence, and optimism. Demonstrations have reached the most ignorant and most needy better than any form of academic instruction, because demonstrators must be doers before they become teachers. The effect and power of a demonstration are measured by the success of the enterprise and the standing and influence of the demonstrator. The demonstration method has proved to be not only the best for the ignorant, but also for the intelligent. Certainly the more intelligent farmers can carry object lessons further than the ignorant ones. Furthermore, it is safe to assume a fair amount of good farm and home development in an intelligent, prosperous community. Perhaps one reason why farmers tire of institutes and lectures is because they feel that they have reached a stage of knowledge where they can do things fairly well and have thus become teachers and leaders themselves. They do not care to accumulate a lot of information upon diverse subjects just for the purpose of acquiring information. They want usable knowledge upon specific things. (Fig. 4.) The negro has made sufficient progress for extension agents to find men, women, boys, and girls in every community who can demonstrate better farming and home making.

The history of extension work for negroes has not been exactly parallel to that of the whites in the Southern States. The white agents started work with men demonstrators, followed in succession by boys, girls, and women. Negro work started with men and women first. The agents tried to meet the most urgent needs of the farms and homes. At the time when the Department of Agriculture and State agricultural colleges first began to appoint negro agents, the club work of white boys and girls had drifted somewhat away from the demonstration feature and was emphasizing the club feature. When the negro agents began later to enroll boys and girls they did so because they felt that these young folks should have an influence in farming and in home making in their communities. It was not so much a matter of teaching and telling as it was of doing and growing. One agent expressed it by saying, “We are emphasizing work rather than clubs.” Of course, in the natural process of evolution, agents came to pay more attention to meetings, organization, recreation, and group activities in general, but the central theme is the demonstration.

Negro club members have manifested a disposition for the boy to do the farming and the girl the home making. That tendency is general in all extension work, of course, but the line of differentiation has not been so clear in adult activities. Because of the limited funds available, few counties have been able to afford both negro men and women agents. Thus it comes about that the men agents do more home work and the women agents more farm work than in counties employing both county agricultural and home demonstration agents. As time goes on and more agents are appointed, this matter will adjust itself.

During the present period of readjustment and reconstruction it is becoming more and more apparent to students of extension work that the greatest ultimate reform will take place where the most successful demonstration of content and size are conducted and where such demonstrations are multiplied in the greatest numbers. Many negro agents seem to have the ability to encourage their demonstrators and magnify the influence of their work. They have caught the philosophy of the founder of demonstration work, Seaman A. Knapp, when he said, “Your value lies not in what you can do but in what you can get other people to do.” Negro agents seem to appreciate the standing in the community of a man or woman who has done better work than anybody else. They enter into the thought and life of the demonstrator who estimated that more than 50 men in his neighborhood had been influenced by his success with 10 acres of cotton along the roadside. They know that the boy who said, “My club acre has been noticed by many people in this section and I am sure it will cause some of my boy friends to join the club next year,” had developed in himself the real spirit of service. They appreciate the feeling of pride and satisfaction that came to the girl club member who raised a dairy calf, built a good house for it, and then saw more than a dozen like it built within a radius of 5 miles of her home. (Fig. 5.) The result has been to make each person carrying on a demonstration feel that he has a responsibility as a leader and teacher in his community.

The culminating evidence of these efforts toward improvement through the object-lesson method is found in the results obtained in home and lawn beautification. Particularly in recent years negro extension agents have brought about marked progress in the renovation, painting, and whitewashing of houses and outbuildings, and in the growing of flowers, grass, and shrubbery in the front yards.

VALUE OF COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATIONS

FIG. 5.—Negro club member who made sufficient profit from the sale of butter and buttermilk to pay her way through Tuskegee Institute. The benefits which accrued through her club activities were far-reaching in that her neighbors and friends were inspired to follow the best dairy practices in an effort to emulate her successful results. ]

Negro farmers have manifested considerable interest in cooperative marketing. They belong to cotton, tobacco, peanut, potato, and similar associations. They usually follow carefully instructions in grading and standardization. They appreciate the opportunity of purchasing fertilizers and other supplies through the farm bureau and other organizations engaged in such enterprises. In some counties where associations have given special attention to marketing carloads of hogs, chickens, potatoes, pecans, and other products produced in surplus quantities, the negroes do their share. It has come about that most marketing plans which have been developed include negroes in their operations better than any other form of productive and educational enterprise. In cooperative-marketing associations the commodity is considered rather than the person or the community. Clarendon County, S. C., is a very good example of such development. The market bureau, which was established at the suggestion of the county agricultural agent and which is conducted largely under his direction and guidance, has the names of more than 700 negroes on its mailing list. These negroes have cooperated not only by shipping potatoes, hogs, peanuts, chickens, and other commodities, but by procuring better seed and stock in order to grow products of better quality for shipment. As this work develops in any community it gradually brings about a general improvement. It begins with individuals but always influences the entire community. (Fig. 6.)

FIG. 6.—A demonstration of home conveniences designed to lighten the labor of the negro home maker and allow her more time for self-improvement and recreation. Such demonstrations by local men or women have stimulated the adoption of good practices and have done much to bring about a general community improvement.]

Such cooperation has increased self-respect and has strengthened mutual confidence. This activity has emphasized the fact that men and women limited in ambition and will power may be greatly stimulated to successful effort by the esteem and encouragement of their neighbors. The county agricultural agent of Clarendon County reported that every negro farmer in his county knows No. 1, No. 2, and Jumbo potatoes. He also reported that they are striving to produce No. 1’s because they realize that products of such quality will receive the commendation of everybody concerned and also will bring in larger returns. This realization of the value of superior products has brought about a great improvement in the type of chickens, pigs, and other farm animals raised for market.

Marketing has tended to unify and systematize extension organization in the counties more than any other work that has been done thus far. It has enlisted the active interest of all farmers, both white and colored, and of local business men. Some of the counties which will have full quotas of both white and colored extension agents, and good representative working organizations are developing extension programs to a fuller degree than has been possible heretofore. It is an enormous task to change the customs and habits of centuries or even of decades. Negroes who have grown practically nothing but cotton are slow to become dairymen, poultrymen, and truckers. They change mainly because of economic necessity.

EVOLUTION OF PLAN

The evolution of an agricultural plan of work among negroes, in a general way, followed that of the whites. It began with demonstrations in the improvement of staple crops and then proceeded step by step into crop diversification, animal husbandry, and conservation. The whole development may be briefly expressed as follows: Crop production, livestock production, soil building, and marketing. Fortunately, this program is so logical and so appropriate that demonstrators and club members are naturally disposed to follow it. This does not mean that they all do the same things at the same time. In livestock activities, one group may be emphasizing dairy cattle and another hogs. The retroactive influence upon crop production in one direction and soil improvement in another is very potent. Seaman A. Knapp evidently had this whole evolution in mind, and he was familiar with the work among negroes, when he told the agents not to go before the people with elaborate programs. He said: “The average man, like the crow, can not count more than three. Do the next thing.” General Armstrong was dealing with the same people and, to some extent, with the same thought when he said, “I try to get at bottom facts, and then take the next step.”

A general agricultural plan of work, of course, is applicable everywhere at any time. It is flexible, and requires individual initiative and resourcefulness. The more experienced farmers and club boys will be in the advanced stages while the novices will be taking the first step. The whole procedure goes forward in cycles. As each cycle comes around, modification and adaptation take place in accordance with the progress science has made in the meantime. For instance, in corn demonstrations in most parts of the South, where, in former years, farmers planted one-ear varieties, they are now using prolific varieties, especially where interplantings of peas and beans and where hogging down and grazing are to be done.

The Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station recently came to the conclusion that vetch is the best winter legume for most of the soils in Alabama. Thousands of negro farmers have accepted that instruction and are using vetch as a winter legume and soil improver. The negro farmers have also accepted the teachings of the experiment station in regard to the kinds and quantities of fertilizers to be used.

The negro home program also has been developed through certain logical processes, which may be indicated briefly as follows: Production, utilization, construction, and beautification. This, too, is a natural program which may be followed consciously and intuitively by every person who is properly started in the work. The negro women and girls commence with growing vegetables in the gardens, beginning with the most needed food crops and enlarging their operations gradually. Then they undertake to conserve enough for home use during the winter. They sell the surplus vegetables, both fresh and canned. It is an easy step from canning vegetables to the preservation of fruits. Better bread comes next because of its importance as food and because flour, meal, and grains in general are available. Then eggs and butter are standardized, and poultry meat is properly cooked and canned. Such activities, in turn, stimulate better work with pork, beef, and other meats.

Success in such enterprises suggests and encourages home improvement, involving demonstrations in rearranging kitchens, living rooms, and homes in general. Better furniture is procured and paint and whitewash are in demand. Demonstrations with textiles and fabrics are considered incidentally all along. The girls and women want simple neat dresses in their work. The club idea suggests uniforms for public demonstrations and meetings. In hundreds of instances the program culminates with an attractive new home in a setting of trees, shrubbery, and flowers. Such a self-developed program, the germs of which exist in the plans and hopes of the people who are actually doing the work on the farms and in the homes, is infinitely more important than one developed for them.

It is fortunate that negro extension work started with demonstrations by individual farmers instead of with organization for instruction purposes. Organization arose spontaneously. People who did the same kind of work in the same way were easily organized. Negro farmers and members of their families who had the same kind of poultry, for instance, and who built the same kind of houses, were brought together for mutual stimulation, help, and instruction. Every farmer who had an object lesson in growing vetch, soy beans, velvet beans, or peanuts was glad to join a tour to see similar activities on farms in other parts of his county. Field meetings, tours, camps, and short courses have the elements and principles of organization within them. They constitute a focus or converging point for activities that are mutual. If the white agents who did negro work in the beginning or the negro agents who took it up later had proceeded on an organization basis first, the whole proposition would have been misunderstood by both white and colored people.

Observation of the experience of the people who made negro extension work possible and its success notable, naturally calls attention to the elementary methods which have been used. The various processes may be stated in a half dozen words: Consultation, demonstration, emulation, publication, organization, and multiplication. Whether the agents are working with the approximately 217,500 negroes who own their own farms or with the 703,500 who are tenants, deliberation, conference, and good judgment are required to establish the work without creating friction. In the pioneer counties, where the demonstrations were most successful, the introduction was done in a quiet way. The general public did not know much about it until good object lessons in crop production were available, and nothing prevents or stops criticism so readily as successful demonstrations. If the demonstrators have been carefully selected, if they are men whose conduct has been exemplary, the conviction is all the stronger.

The first negro demonstrators were proud to wear the button furnished by the Department of Agriculture containing the word “Demonstrator.” These buttons were often given out in churches as awards of merit and distinction. Negroes are very susceptible to commendation and praise. It means a lot to a man, woman, boy, or girl, who has started out on a demonstration program, to receive recognition from his pastor, his neighbors, and especially from the leading white citizens. Whenever a county paper calls attention to the outstanding results obtained by a negro farmer, he immediately measures up to the added responsibility and goes forward on the path of improvement. Whenever there is a considerable number of demonstrators of that kind, it is safe to do organization work along agricultural and home-economics lines. In fact, negroes who have demonstrated that kind of enterprise and dependability are ready for cooperative marketing or other welfare organization. The great task that is before the negro extension force is to multiply the numbers of good demonstrators. In this way, they will develop leaders and magnify the kind of activities which will meet with universal approval.

GROWTH OF PERSONNEL AND FINANCES

The gradual increase in the number of negro agents and also in the appropriations for their support during the last 10 years gives much promise for the development of this work in the future. On June 30, 1915, the end of the first year under the Smith-Lever Act, 49 negro men agents and 17 women agents were employed, and the total cost of the work during the year was $31,589. In 1919, 459 negro men and women agents were employed and the cost was $247,509. On June 30, 1924, the end of the first decade under the Smith-Lever Act, 299 agents were employed, of whom 191 were men and 108, women. The total amount expended during the fiscal year 1924 was $426,266, which was derived from Federal, State, and county sources, and which represented the peak in the amount of money devoted to this work. More agents were employed during the war period, but many of them devoted only part time to extension work. All things considered, therefore, negro extension work is making steady and substantial progress every year.

From Table 3, page 28, it will be noted that the increase in the number of negro extension agents and in the cost of maintaining them went forward in two distinct stages during the 10-year period immediately following the enactment of the Smith-Lever Act. The number of agents and the number of club members increased very rapidly during the World War, which was followed by a period of unrest and transition. After that came a settling down and then an era of solid and substantial development. There has been a gradual and steady increase in the amount of money devoted to negro extension work. Although it is true that not so many agents were on duty in 1924 as in 1919, yet more than four times as many were employed in 1924 as in 1915. Furthermore, the finances had increased more than a dozenfold. This indicates a better-trained class of negro agents and a greater public willingness to support negro extension work.

Texas, which receives more Federal money than any other State, had 36 negro agents in 1924 and spent $55,424 for their salaries, travel, and other necessary expenses. Alabama had 34 negro agents, men and women, and $50,057 was spent in the maintenance of their work. Mississippi had 36 agents and the cost was $48,876. Virginia had a total of 34 agents and the cost of maintaining this force was $44,787. Georgia had 26 agents and expended $30,452. Several other States have a large agency force and the financial support is becoming more and more liberal.

The percentage of negroes to whites is different in each of the Southern States and this fact would be taken into consideration in any study of appropriations for negro work. At the last census, Georgia had 1,689,114 white people and 1,206,365 negroes; Mississippi, 853,962 whites and 935,184 negroes; Alabama, 1,447,032 whites and 900,652 negroes; South Carolina, 818,538 whites and 864,719 negroes; North Carolina, 1,783,779 whites and 763,407 negroes; Texas, 3,918,165 whites and 741,694 negroes; Virginia, 1,617,909 whites and 690,017 negroes; and Oklahoma, 1,821,194 whites and 149,408 negroes.

It will be observed from Table 3 that practically all of the States which took up negro extension work first have the greatest financial support and the largest number of agents in proportion to their negro population. Alabama and Virginia appointed their first negro agents in 1906; Mississippi, in 1908; Georgia and South Carolina, in 1909; Oklahoma, in 1910; North Carolina, in 1911; and the other States in rapid succession.

It is greatly to the credit of the pioneer agents that their work has met with the approval of county commissioners, boards of education, and public authorities generally. Nothing is quite so encouraging about the whole development as the wholesome public sentiment which has sustained the work and encouraged the agents. This support is based upon knowledge of good work done and results achieved. A large metropolitan daily paper, speaking of the present work of the man who was the first negro agent appointed by the United States Department of Agriculture, said:

His principal duties are to see that negro county agricultural agents obtain outline maps of each county and properly distribute the work; that at least one house in each county is built at stated intervals according to an approved plan; that one or more electric lighting systems be undertaken in the county; that at least one house be whitewashed or painted in each demonstration community; that one or more water systems be undertaken in each county; that at least one farmstead home grounds be developed in each community; that at least one sanitary toilet be constructed in each demonstration community; that at least one crop-rotation demonstration be given; that one or more permanent pastures be established; that at least one person in each community be taught the use of the farm level; that one year-round garden demonstration be established; that at least one farm be properly laid out or plotted in each county; that one playground be equipped in each community; and that one or more demonstration orchards be established in each county.