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action of the county, the state, and the Department of Agriculture. . . . The county agent's business is to bring to his county everything that is appropriate to that locality. the farmers need a cow-testing association, he will help them to organise it. If they need a breeding association, he will help them with it. The one big thing that he needs. . . is to have a good organisation of farmers behind him, supporting him in his work, and helping him to shape up the work itself.' '*

More details of the work of the county agents in the fifteen southern states were furnished to the committee by Mr Bradford Knapp, who is in charge of extension work in the south:

'The county agent goes to a man, and if he can persuade him to become interested in growing better corn [i.e. maize] and in doing it more economically, he says: "How many acres will you take?" The farmer answers that he will take one or five, or whatever it is. The agent says: "On this land I want you to follow the directions I shall give you. We will put our heads together to discover what is the best way to handle your crop. You follow your own plan on the rest of the farm." The preparation of the land is gone into; and the county agent tells him what variety of corn he would like to have him plant, and helps him to get a variety adapted to that particular soil and climate. He gives him instructions about planting, and the method of cultivation of the crop. In the fall the seed is selected for the next crop. The agent shows the farmer the method of seed selection. That corn is harvested, measured and weighed. They get the average of that and the average of the near-by corn, and the farmer makes a report to the county agent. Throughout the season the county agent visits the farmer at such times as it is necessary to give him instructions. He may not be there when the cultivation is taking place, but comes around once in every three or four weeks to see how the crop is coming When he comes, he invites the farmers of the neighbourhood, tells them what he is doing, and discusses with them the methods that have been employed in cultivating this particular crop.' †

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Extension work with the women on the farms in the south was begun in 1910. In reviewing this work before

Hearings before the Committee of Agriculture,' 1915-16, 1431. + Ibid., 1205.

the committee on agriculture, Mr Knapp stated that in 1915 there were 350 women county agents at work in the southern states.

'They deal (he said) with the problems of the farm and farm economy. They teach home-gardening, the canning of fruits and vegetables from the gardens; they give demonstrations of labour-saving devices in the home-home-made affairsleading to better conditions and greater economy in the home itself. Women county agents are to-day reaching approximately thirty-five thousand homes in the south.'*

A new value attached to the work and opportunities of the county agents as soon as the United States became involved in the war, and the propaganda for increased food-production in this country began. In the agents both the Department of Agriculture and the agricultural colleges had a ready medium through which farmers and food-growers could be directly reached and immediately interested in the new movement. But the most obvious opportunities of utilising, for war purposes, the services of the county agents and the county leagues associated with them were to be found in the towns and cities, where, before the war, little had been known of the county agency system. Here the agents and the county leagues engaged in two new departments of work. They served as labour-recruiting agencies for farms-chiefly in recruiting boys from the high schools-and they also gave much practical help to the armies of allotmentholders that came into existence early in April last, when it was brought home to people of all classes that the food supply would be a most pressing question in the winter of 1917-1918. Local committees secured land in or near the cities for free allotments; and, through the work of these committees, lawns were broken up for vegetable gardens. County agents, and supervisors working under them, gave instruction on the spot to the amateur gardeners, and in many places they also helped them in securing seed and fertilisers.

In the fiscal year 1916-1917 approximately $34,000,000 were being expended by the Government of the United

*Hearings,' 1209.

States on the Department of Agriculture, on the agricultural colleges and experiment stations, and on extension work under the Smith-Lever Act.*

Appropriation to the department of agriculture $25,000,000 Morrill and Nelson funds for colleges of agricul

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The Department of Agriculture serves the urban communities in at least two ways. The inspection of all food products that enter into interstate commerce-all food products that are marketed outside the states in which they are grown and prepared for sale-comes under the Department. Many such products cannot be sold unless they bear the stamp of the Department. The urban population also shares, or can share, with the rural population in that part of the extension work which is devoted to home economics; and largely through the activities of the Federation of Women's Clubs, home economics are now being systematically studied by women in the cities. But in normal times no part of the propaganda of the Department is directed to persuading people to leave the cities in order to engage in farming. The object of the Department and of the agricultural colleges and the extension work is the same-to improve all departments of farm economy, to improve conditions on the farms and in the farm homes, and thereby to retain in rural pursuits the men, women and children who are now on the six million farms of the United States.

EDWARD PORRITT.

* 'Cong. Rec.,' vol. LIV, No. 52, 3178.

Art. 4.-THE PLACE-NAMES OF ENGLAND.

1. Names and their Histories. By Isaac Taylor. Rivington, 1894.

2. Notes on Staffordshire, Worcestershire, and Warwickshire Place-Names. By W. H. Duignan. London: Frowde, 1902-1912.

3. The Place-Names of Hertfordshire (Hertford: Austin, 1904); of Huntingdonshire (Cambridge: Deighton, 1904); of Bedfordshire (Deighton, 1906); of Cambridgeshire (Deighton, 1901); of Berkshire (Clarendon Press, 1911); of Suffolk (Deighton, 1913). By Professor Skeat.

4. The Place-Names of Lancashire. By Professor H. C. Wyld and T. Oakes Hurst. Constable, 1911.

5. The Place-Names of Oxfordshire. By Henry Alexander. Clarendon Press, 1912.

6. The Place-Names of England and Wales. By Rev. James B. Johnston. Murray, 1915.

And other works.

MAPS are documents which have a fascination for many people to whom geography as a science is unknown. They are eloquent of the life both of the present and the past, vivid records of human endeavour and the obstacles which it has overcome. In these days of wide-spread education there are few people who have not some general notion of at least the map of their own country and of the world as a whole; and there are many who take up an atlas and study it as a matter of general interest, learning thereby, perhaps unconsciously, to know outlines and positions scattered over the world's surface. There is much that a map can tell to any one who studies it intelligently; but even for the most intelligent observer there is an infinite amount of information lying on the face of it which can only be appreciated after a large measure of study and enquiry. Much has been done of late years to transform maps into living documents, and to make the events of the past live by reference to them; and this has both quickened and induced the interest taken in them.

But there are two elements in a map-the physical features, which man can modify to a very limited extent by the processes of engineering and agriculture; and the nomenclature, which is entirely of his own creation.

Many books, both elaborate and elementary, have been written on the physical features of the British Isles ; but it is only of late years that the study of British place-names has been carried out in a scientific fashion; and, so far, the trustworthy material relates only to certain of the counties of England. But that which has been done has laid a solid foundation of method which future enquirers and students can follow with the assurance that it provides the means of arriving at truth undiluted by misleading fancy. For many generations, place-names afforded an all-too ample field for the speculations and guesses of the antiquary who, innocent of philological knowledge, made large generalisations from mistaken particulars, and rushed to any conclusion which might add a dramatic interest to the subject. Still, if he erred, he erred splendidly; and his work had this merit, at any rate, that it made men realise the interest of the subject which he had treated with so free a hand and so uncontrolled an imagination.

is necessary Men find it of a plan of

In order to understand place-names it to realise how they came into existence. necessary to carry in their heads some sort the region in which they live. In the days before maps this necessity was met by giving each topographical feature, whether natural or artificial, its own name. Each field in an English parish had its special name by which it was known to the parishioners; and thus the dwellers in the neighbourhood carried about in their heads a fair working knowledge of its topography. And what applies to the small area of the parish applies to the larger area of the kingdom, and to the still larger area of the world. With the growing use of the map field-names are passing out of use. But this is partly due to increased facilities for travel. In old days, when men moved within much smaller areas than now, their minds were naturally much more concentrated on them, and on the minutiae of their natural features. Darwin, in his account of the cruise of the 'Beagle,' relates how he was struck with the minuteness in the distinction of natural objects displayed in the language of the Indians of the island of Chiloe, off the west coast of South America. Their topographical vocabulary was

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