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 [1]
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.