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Show UTAH FARMERS GET USEFUL ASSISTANCE Agricultural College Work Proves of High Value to the State. REPORT IS COMPILED Activities of County Demonstrators Dem-onstrators Cover Broad Field of Help. Dr. R. J. Evans, state leader in farm demonstration work in Utah, has just completed an illuminating report on the work of the county demonstrators throughout the stato for the past year. The report is significant in that it reflects re-flects tho modern idea in agricultural education as opposed to the old. The time Is now here when the state school of agriculture does more than instruct in-struct the student fortunate enough to be able to attend school. Today the college col-lege carries the message to the people. How thoroughly this is being clone, a brief review of the results accomplished the past year by the farm demonstrators demonstra-tors will show. In dairying, although most of the demonstrators dem-onstrators are operating in counties where cow-testing associations are inadvisable inad-visable at the present time, nearly 1000 cows have been Uted. The purpose of this work is to obtain sufficient data to convince the farmer of the value of testing the individual production of his cows, to eliminate the non-paying cows and teach the necessity for better care, feeding and selection of his herd. Irrigation practices have been investigated investi-gated and the universally bad practice of overirrigation of crops has been largely corrected. In Utah county a very fine, up-to-date system of water dividing and measuring weirs was Installed under the direction of the county agent and the Irrigation Irri-gation specialist. Good Drainage Work. This will accomplish the double purpose pur-pose of distributing the water equitably and of cutting down the distribution expense. ex-pense. There have been fifteen Irrigation systems planned for the farmers, embracing em-bracing an approximate area of 27,568 acres of land. In Millard county an area of some 6000 acres is now being drained, due to ceaseless cease-less work on the part of the county demonstrator. dem-onstrator. In Sevier county the county agent has succeeded in getting through a bond issue of $68,000 for drainage purposes. pur-poses. The drainage district in Sevier countv embraces about ;000 acres of land. In six other counties similar drainage projects are under way or being planned. -In all there have been thirty-ono drainage drain-age svs terns planned, covering an area of 11.660 acres of land, exclusive of the Sevier county project. The improvement of crops has been a problem for nearly all the demonstrators, j The most productive varieties of wheat j have been introduced, seed potatoes have I been shipped in and definite work In the development of silage corn has been done. Diseases Eliminated. Campaigns against crop diseases met with remarkable success. Grain and potato po-tato diseases were fought by means of i chemical treatment. Much effective j work against the alfalfa weevil and the ; grasshopper was done. Hog cholera was checked and stamped out wherever it de- velnped. i Farm management demonstrations ; were made in six areas of the state, em- bracing about 360 farms. The records I were taken by the county agent, assisted by the farm management demonstrator and the state leader, were checked by the farm management demonstrator and the state leader, were worked up largely by the farm management demons t rat or and returned to the farmers by all the above-mentioned parties. Through this system the .'JfiO farmers were reached In a verv definite way, their business being be-ing thoroughly analyzed either by the county agent or the farm management demonstrator, and their business reorganized reor-ganized in Dip light of the information obtained through the tabulated records Practically every farmer whose record was taken and returned expressed a feeling feel-ing of satisfaction about the system and requested that the work be continued. Record books, prepared especially for this line of work, were placed in the hands of practically all of these farmers. The records rec-ords for the year of i15 will be taken from these books. Has Broad Scope. During the year 876iJ farms were visited, vis-ited, where some definite problem was Uikcn up with the farmers. Two thousand thou-sand eight hundred and twenty-seven different farmers were reached in these visits. Sixteen hundred and seventy-seven seventy-seven farmers called at the agents' offices. of-fices. Five hundred and twenty-three meetings, with a tctal attendance of 23.-7 23.-7 ft i) persons, were held. At 1 05 of t hese meetings df finite assistance was rendered by specialists of the Agricultural college or the United States department of agriculture. ag-riculture. One hundred seven 1 y-eight visits to the schools of the counties were maile, where school problems were discussed. dis-cussed. Thirty-eight schools were assisted as-sisted by the agents In developing agricultural agri-cultural instruction. Forty-six observation observa-tion excursions were run by the agents, in which 737 farmers took part. These were made to observe the best systems of work in operation in various parts of each county. , In addition tn this 1 personal contact wnrk, the agents wrote 1-19 agricultural articles for local papers, sent out to farmers farm-ers 3463 circulars and circular letters, distributed 3019 state and federal bulletins bulle-tins and wrote 61 23 letters to individual farmers. |