is suggested that the annual appropriation for this department be increased to $3,000. That will enable the laboratory to give prompt service at seeding time when the demands are greatest and also make it possible to develop the other work mentioned.

Agricultural Extension.

Report of Division of Extension in Agriculture and Home Economics for the year ending October 31, 1914.

BY ALVA AGEE, DIRECTOR.

"The extension work of an educational institution embraces all of its activities for the instruction of people who are not resident at the instition." This is a definition of extension work that has been accepted by the national association of agricultural colleges and experiment stations. Our educational and research institutions in the various states have found it necessary throughout their existence to engage in some extension activities. This has been due in part to the necessity of popularizing their endeavor so that financial and moral support might be secured and held, and in recent years it has been due in higher degree to insistent demand upon the part of the people that helpful information be given them. The New Jersey Experiment Stations, through their various departments, became engaged in a large amount of practical demonstration and instruction throughout the State in an early day. A Department of Agricultural Extension was created December 1, 1912, in order that the work might be prosecuted more vigorously and research departments might be relieved in large degree of the distractions to their work that necessarily attend extension activity. There was no effort to place all outside work within the new department because the members of the instructional and research staffs were in such close relations with the people of the State that the best service could not be assured through its interruption. The aim of the new department was to assist every department of research in reaching the public by increased facilities and to relieve the department in so far as organization and a new staff of specialists could do so. It is proper to express here the department's appreciation of the spirit of hearty co-operation that has been found in the entire College and Station staff.

Organization.

Effective work can result only from sound organization. The principle has been recognized that there may not be two sources of authority within one institution in respect to the character of instruction given along any one line. The extension department, through its specialists, meets the people of the State, and it is necessary that it carry to them the accepted views of the institution. The rule, therefore, has been laid down that, while the director of extension controls the time of the members of his staff, the instruction given by any specialist is under the supervision of the department within the College and Station that has that

subject in hand. The specialist in any subject needs close association. with the men within such department, and whenever his duties throughout the State do not demand his time he may be assigned work by the department having his speciality in charge. This close association is beneficial to the man and to his institution and to the people of the State. National legislation involving heavy appropriations of National funds to the various states made necessary the creation of a Division of Extension in Agriculture and Home Economics within the State Agricultural College, and such a division was formed July 1, 1914. The work of the Department of Agricultural Extension in the New Jersey State Experiment Station was so co-ordinated with the work within the new division that a report of extension activity necessarily embraces this co-ordinated work as a whole.

The Smith-Lever Act.

An act of Congress, known as the Smith-Lever act and receiving the approval of the President May 8, 1914, was the response of the National Government to a widespread demand for extension work in agriculture and home economics throughout the country.

The purpose of the Smith-Lever act is "to aid in diffusing among the people of the United States useful and practical information on subjects relating to agriculture and home economics, and to encourage the application of same." It provides for extension work to be inaugurated in connection with the land-grant colleges of the states and to be carried on in co-operation with the United States Department of Agriculture. "That co-operative agricultural extension work shall consist of the giving of instruction and practical demonstrations in agriculture and home economics to persons not attending or resident in said colleges in the several communities, and imparting to such persons information on said subjects through field demonstrations, publications, and otherwise; and this work shall be carried on in such manner as may be mutually agreed upon by the Secretary of Agriculture and the State Agricultural College or colleges receiving the benefits of this act."

"That for the purpose of paying the expenses of said co-operative agricultural extension work and the necessary printing and distributing of information in connection with the same there is permanently appropriated, out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of $480,000 for each year, $10,000 of which shall be paid annually in the manner hereinafter provided, to each State which shall by action of its legislature assent to the provisions of this act."

The act further appropriates for the benefit of all the states "an additional sum of $600,000 for the fiscal year following that in which the foregoing appropriation first becomes available and for each year thereafter for seven years a sum exceeding by $500,000 the sum appropriated for each preceding year, and for each year thereafter there is permanently appropriated for each year the sum of $4,100,000 in addition to the sum of $480,000 hereinafter provided. Such additional sums shall be used only for the purposes hereinbefore stated and shall be allotted annually to

each state by the secretary of agriculture and paid in the manner hereinbefore provided, in the proportion which the rural population of each state bears to the total rural population of all the states as determined by the next preceding federal census; provided further that no payment out of the additional appropriations herein provided shall be made in any year to any state until an equal sum has been appropriated for that year by the legislature of such state or provided by state, county, college, local authority or individual contribution from within the State, for the maintenance of the co-operative agricultural extension work provided for in this act."

The annual appropriation to the State of New Jersey through this act will become $62,000 seven years hence, provided an equal amount is available at that time from state, county and other sources. Beginning with $10,000 in the current year, the annual increase would be about $7,000.

Projects.

All of the work of the extension division is organized by projects, and all projects involving the expenditure of any Smith-Lever funds must have the approval of the States' Relations Service of the National Department of Agriculture. Eleven projects have been listed in the plan

of work of the division.

Farm Demonstration.

One of the most important projects in our extension work is concerned with county farm demonstration. An act was passed by the New Jersey State Legislature in May 1913, providing for the appointment of a State Superintendent of Farm Demonstration.

"For the purpose of assisting the farmers of this State to care for and improve the conditions of the soil, to increase the productivity of the farms and the value of farm products, the State superintendent of farm demonstration, hereinafter provided for, is hereby authorized and directed to conduct a continuous course of demonstration of the most improved and scientific methods of agriculture in the various counties of this State, selecting for purposes of demonstration farms in the various counties of this State which are most convenient of access to the majority of the farmers of such counties, the owners of which consent thereto and agree to co-operate in such demonstration work. The demonstration work contemplated by this statute shall be performed by the owners of such farms under the direction of the state superintendent and the county superintendents, as hereinafter provided, and the farms upon which work is in progress shall be open to the inspection of all persons interested in such work, in order that the results thereof may be as clearly and widely observed as possible. * * * The Board of Managers of the New Jersey State Agricultural Experiment Station may appoint, whenever it seems necessary to them, for each of the counties in this State a county superintendent of farm demonstration, who shall be a man of practical

experience and who shall reside in the county for which he is chosen during his term of office and devote his time to the proper performance of his duties, which shall be the supervision and furtherance of farm demonstration work in his county, under the supervision and direction of the State superintendent. The county superintendent shall receive such salary as the State superintendent shall fix, said salary, or so much thereof as the State superintendent may require, to be paid by the county for which he is appointed, from money appropriated for that purpose by the county."

The present director of the extension division was appointed State Superintendent of Farm Demonstration by the Board of Managers of the State Experiment Station. It is his duty to carry on farm demonstration work throughout the entire State, but he has availed himself of the provision that county superintendents of farm demonstration might be appointed where the best interests of the public demanded such action. Work under this plan is entirely in line with the county plan which was inaugurated by the National Department of Agriculture several years. ago, and is also in line with the thought of Congress in the enactment of the Smith-Lever bill, as shown by the discussions of Congress when the bill was before it. The county is usually the logical unit for extension work so far as local problems are concerned, and its best interests can be served through a representative of the State College and Experiment Station who may be known as a county extension representative or agent or farm demonstrator. It has thus come about that county farm demonstration could rightly be made a project within the scope of the Smith-Lever act, of the plans of the Bureau of Plant Industry in the National Department of Agriculture which has a special appropriation for such work of the farm demonstration law of New Jersey, and of the natural extension plans of the State agricultural institutions embracing county organization.

The State Superintendent of Farm Demonstration believes that the appointment of a county representative is inexpedient whenever a strong local demand for such appointment does not exist. There has been insistence that any county desiring such appointment should submit petitions bearing the names of a sufficient number of progressive farmers and other business men to afford evidence that the demand is reasonably general, and that the new endeavor will have faithful local support. When such petitions have been received the State superintendent asks some of the farmers of the county to join him in meeting the board of chosen freeholders when a request is preferred for an appropriation to support the work. It is not within the duty of the State superintendent to do more than to present the whole matter, and in nearly every instance the boards of freeholders have cordially made the necessary appropriations for establishment of the work. The interests of the county require the appointment of a practical man who has had a sound. training in agricultural science. His position becomes one of local leadership, although he regards himself only as the instrument through