Show MEN OF EARTH by ru russel I 1 I 1 lord lord jjr 0 ion 21 vl AN X bahk UILO P Z k kit it arti 11 ia V l 1 ii n V 1 l i li 1 1 it s i va x H ill M u i ik r ik 11 k p avi A hil 1 I if TEACHERS ON WHEELS I 1 UE HE first county agricultural extension tsee teri tion agent I 1 ever knew I 1 can J see him yet as he comes gingerly picking his way across corn stubble on my fathers farm to ask ernie of all people it if he be needs any advice I 1 see him as plainly as if it were yesterday about thirty blue cult t white wash tie lie the general air of that if he be only had bad a blackboard and some real scholars he be could explain everything thus gingerly he went his way among us for years always homesick for his blackboard always seeming gently to brush the chalk dust from his big hands as he spoke another quite another sort in california the breadth of a continent away redheaded red headed beaded healthily ignorant immense and trig in the puttees and sombrero of a forest ranger putting a geared up flivver at forty over rutted roads rolling it back on its wheels when it upsets ue ile comes back to me most plainly standing in the middle of a vast bare baked valley towering over a short tat fat man in a red undershirt the int fat man Is crying and not trying to hide bide it he has come all the way from new jesey jepsey to grow oranges only to find this I 1 the lips of the young agent pour forth great oaths ue he shakes his bis fist and swears he will see justice done just like the redhead to confuse his mission to forget be Is simply an instructor tor of the university afield to meddle in busi business but the great land company does in the end give the homesteader bowes teader a piece of land that does not puddle under Irrig irrigation atio n and his chance at least to live happily these two are my extremes all the others fall somewhere between one now gray who worked before there was waa a smith lever law when there were only about twenty agents to in all america instead of some twenty hundred ile he tells how in 1912 he be was called upon at one house to assist at a birth and at the next to sharpen a scythe another of that early day he took orders for fertilizer pocketed the commission and when confronted with the impropriety coolly said that it was the most practical program he could think of to improve the soil boll fertility of the county the only downright shiftless and faithless one I 1 ever knew lolling around with the courthouse politicians and cussing bussing farmers as knockers one who in a bad roads county walks twenty miles many a winter day to keep bis big project committees going A timid credulous one these are rare ne ile gratefully believes everything he be hears bears and reads that women who smoke cant have babies that germany will be dry in two months that the crap shooting son of a 11 local pastor really gave his coat to a shivering man he be met on the street of these three things he be solemnly as assures me 1 in live five minutes utes riding but a good agent his people respect his bis sincerity and trust him characters the big ex halfback who in the first two minutes you met him had to know how bow old you were whether you were married and why not the one who was always showing you tits his deputy sheriffs sherll Tg badge find and bunting moon shiners by moonlight the one who lit matches in his coupe and waved them around his head while driving to show you how aar tight he had everything the one who told me god must love extension supervisors lie he made so many of them the one who dr a culling demonstration was confronted with evidence that one of a butich bunch of his cull hens at a neighboring farm had bad actually laid an egg lie he said well folk they stabbed julius caesar and they made old ates drink the hemlock and they burned joan of are arc at the stake I 1 guess we all I 1 an agent who never makes a direct S suggestion 0 another who makes nothing else always in the tone of orders both somehow successful the best agent in a big state who since hes not working at it now I 1 can name nam e john hervey ile he the slightest sense of hu bior a crusader seldom has once I 1 remember as he was driving me up to talk on books in a remote township ol of his county washington county ohio we trailed perforce on the narrow dirt roads roada of that semi moun region a laboring truck some ribald soul had erased a letter on the trucks back side to give a service caption thereupon displayed a gorgeously vulgar and on the whole more truthful meaning I 1 never worked harder border at anything than I 1 did to explain to john hervey why I 1 thought it was funny finally 1 I see he be sol said then added reproachfully the very idea of a man with your gifts I 1 to john everybody had gifts they tell this story A badly discouraged club youngster trudged down from the hills of washington county and bitterly demanded the usel what can ever grow anyway any good on that blame old hill bill of ours you can said john I 1 think that Is flue fine and I 1 imagine he be said it anyone who knows john hervey can easily picture him saying it rugged intense self forgetful the entire six sir feet of him thrust forward from an inadequate old desk chair his big eyes a clear gray worriedly squinted under those sharply bulging brows his voice low and urgent but no I 1 never dever could have put it that pat said john anxiously the last time I 1 drove out over his county with him ive always had trouble expressing myself always been one of my handicaps all I 1 could get of college was two years the special course at state I 1 know what I 1 want to say all right but most of the time tim e I 1 lust just have to flounder around until people begin to tee see what im after and can work the thing out for themselves but what id have aft wanted anted to have said always been my foundation idea of the county agents job to build up the oncoming crowd to help people especially young people grow 11 sly father had a lot of gifts I 1 could use wonderful personality wonderful ful way of greeting people telling jokes and so on A quiet man but hed have made the best county agent you ever saw I 1 still get some of my best ideas from the things he did for me he gave me responsibility as soon as I 1 could walk always consulted me never tried to lne me ile he was more like an older brother to me than a father 11 1 I was the only boy when I 1 was eighteen a fast pennsylvania flyer hit his wagon before I 1 could reach him he was gone the hardest thing I 1 ever had to do tn in my life was rug to go 90 up to the house and tell my mother john had a ten year fight of it sin gle handed banded on that farm but he built up a herd of purebred jerseys and a retail milk trade and by 1915 1 I had things coming pretty good uy my neighbors were all shipping milk to pittsburgh they got into a big row with the pittsburgh dealers 1 I had my iny own trade the pittsburgh price wa was notting to me at first I 1 see ee here it was any of my business but all along my milk route I 1 kept thinking about it and I 1 finally decided to go to the meeting 1 I got there ten or maybe fifteen minutes late abey were still willing ling about wilo was to preside sol sinne ne body sang out Il heres gilleres fl ilen erveyl 11 hes es e s neutral they ran ihmle it me clial in eighteen live e hud VI pitts ats burghs milk cut cm way down the papers luiere w ere us Is baby killers and the ahe city geiple ere nil all vr ful tn in arms we had to get somebody down there right away to make them see our side ol of tt it that farmers have children too and that this was our light to feed clothe and educate our children decently they put it on me I 1 had to go I 1 walked away from ten acres of hay down all in the lne field and I 1 get home again for thirty days not until the strike BBS as over when the war came all my help wits was drafted I 1 sold my herd and took a temporary job as wartime war time organizer for the farm bureau the war ended and they offered me this job here I 1 tools took it but I 1 surely was afraid of ill ile he had been five years in washington county when an amateur extension specialist I 1 began riding day coaches over all ohio I 1 found no ohio extension worker who did not by that time agree that he was the best county agent in the state here are some of the things that at the end of ten years he had done induced the dairymen of the whole county to pull together on one breed of dairy and another of beet beef cattle and made the county known as a jersey center transformed poultry methods and brought considerably more egg money to ro the small hill bill farms set going throughout those hill townships without the help of a county home demonstration agent through volunteer local leaders trained by a visiting specialist from the college only practical and thoroughgoing modern knowledge on clothing construction st child care nutrition first aid and care of the sick without the help of a county club agent he had run his bis annual 4 11 club enrollment junior extension up to in one year 23 graduates from his big clubs enrolled for the four year course in agriculture at the state university boys who had passed through his clubs then through the university were now back in the county as homebred leaders one was president of the county jersey association another president of the st strongest local farmers club A third was teaching vocational agriculture in the high school A fourth was president of the winter farmers banners fan ners institutes another hervey innovation propelled entirely by local talent music readings talks and andall vall the county had bad a club camp the ground and shacks donated or paid for entirely by resident farmers the people who built it called it camp her vida to honor john hervey and his wife vwe ida two hundred children had a blanket and campmire va vacation catlon there for a week each summer and after that farm wives came in and camped for a week together as gay as flappers in their bloomers braids and blouses that week there were for them no hands to cook for no babies to mind the ile hundreds of people who backed the work and joined to ID it idolized hervey iles hes the greatest thing that ever happened to this county they ran his big salary up above a year tear im afraid of that said john the last time I 1 was in his county the ones who never come out of the hills and never dever want to are raising cain and then theres some pretty powerful ones too commissioners and so on I 1 dont jibe with at all three people were waiting to see him in his office in the courthouse at marietta when I 1 got there that morning and a fourth had him on the telephone an organization problem the ile ladles ladies aid of some church wanted a dressmaking dress making and homemade home made millinery club for girls the local leader of club work had doubts if this church got the club the baptists across the road hold their daughters out john grasping the telephone with the same strong bluntness with which he be used to grasp plow handles settled that thal A worn old man with fine eyes next claimed him drawing him into a corner whispering long and huskily some personal trouble john told me afterwards ile he listened patiently and carefully saying little occasionally shaking big head dolefully the old gentleman seemed immensely relieved almost cheerful when he departed As he came to the door he said that was a good hen demonstration you give up there at the Dy we liked that when was that asked john the old man figured in july it was two years ago I 1 tell this only to show bow long the old man had remembered that lesson given out of doors before a small group of hill people in a henyard benyard by an authorized in instructor tor of the state university more than that by a real teacher it sounds funny but I 1 have been out our with hervey herrey on those poultry culling demonstrations I 1 have seen him back in those hills with a lousy old hen on tits his arm set peoples minds aglow make their eyes shine with desire to know more to be more the rest of the office visitors disposed of we got into the car to answer some calls we saw a man who wanted to know how to go about gassing rats and a buy boy whose father wanted to take him out of high school and a lady who wanted to get some help in rearranging her kitchen at eight in the evening eve alag I 1 asked do you go this gait all the time pretty much in nine weeks there last fall I 1 got in just four evenings evening at home A county agents wife has a lot to put up with you know my luck there here ive got a grout great one I 1 can be lite late for meals if I 1 have to or bring horne home unexpected and always be sure its all right no after cinci and with our camp and work raid and so on oil ashes a wonderful help belp on nn heres just one more fellow mini in 0 o see it young froat farmer about twenty five torn between pride and ana fear A luncheon club in the city of marietta Marlett athe the county sent seat wanted him to make a talk on OD the possibilities of direct marketing and gosh I 1 hed like to but to think of getting up there in front franr of all those lawyers and bankers john set his foot on a hub ot of the car and talked to him a solid hour now look here in 1 res your chance to develop aud and so on over and over the same old ground it was getting late the air was cold and so BO was I 1 when hen the young farmer after a last doleful squirm finally said hed do it IL john jumped into the car trIumph triumphant a a I 1 As we drove off I 1 said john you have kept that bird from speaking with a battery of artillery I 1 maybe youre right said john worriedly then brightened but he be did need somebody to help him worry it all takes time im surprised sometimes at the speed we do make I 1 had that fellow for instance to in my first calf club back in 1920 ten years ago now hes coming to the front its on him and maybe twenty others like him that im counting mainly when I 1 look ahead to what were going to have in this county ten fifteen fifty years from now but those people who were whispering to commissioners and so on and writing letters to the papers were on his mind they pay taxes too he said 1 I wonder if a program has got to be geared to the people who dont want to co come along maybe it anyway they got him its his backers in the county were willing to raise his entire salary personally so nally but john said that a county agent who had failed to get the half salary appropriation which customarily Is voted by the county commissioners would just stir up hard bard feeling by staying he went into commercial work out of the moving pictures of its memories the mind makes images my mind has been building the picture of a county agent who Is not any one of them but all of then them all that Is of the some hundreds I 1 have known worked with and gone forth with as a reporter among the farms of most of the states call him average this composite american county agent nearing thirty lately married strong bronzed and something of a roughneck he looks and thinks more like a forest ranger than the executive secretary that the organization spirit of amer can agriculture all but made of him ile he Is laconic ironic earnest puzzled half prepared if that for bis big job smith hughes teachers of high school agriculture get two years special training but few agricultural colleges have even a man designated to advise students on courses in preparation for the far toti tougher her teaching a county agent has to do he decides to take a whirl at this county agent business dances his head off senior week says so long to the boys at the fraternity house takes tits his diploma marries the girl works two weeks or a month under an older agent and then Is 13 thrust into one of the lesser agricultural counties to learn to swim by swimming often he starts headlong trying to do everything people ask of mm him ile he may solicit 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