Part 7 (1/2)
[142] Derr Report, 1937; and ”State Dairy Herd Improvement a.s.sociation,”
_Herndon News-Observer_, August 8, 1935.
[143] Beard/Pryor, January 23, 1979.
[144] ”Fairfax Farmer Threw Away His Plow in 1928 and Amazing Results Have Been Revolutionary,” _Richmond Times-Dispatch_, September 17, 1951.
[145] Oliver Martin, _On and Off the Concrete in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia_ (Was.h.i.+ngton, 1930), 26.
[146] Derr Reports, 1926, 6, and 1927, 13.
[147] Milk prices dropped from $4.05 per 100 gallons in 1920 to a low of $2.10 in 1932. By 1935 they were still low, but had risen some to $2.25.
The prices given are July figures; January listings were generally a bit higher. See _Virginia Farm Statistics_ (Richmond, 1936), 59.
[148] Beard/Pryor, January 23, 1979.
[149] H. B. Derr, ”Helping Farmers,” _Herndon News-Observer_, April 14, 1932; and Derr Report, 1927, 13.
[150] Derr, ”Helping Farmers.”
[151] Derr Report, 1932, 5.
[152] Derr Report, 1926, 6.
[153] Derr Report, 1932, 6.
[154] McNair, ”What I Remember”; and _16th Census of the United States, 1940, Agriculture--Volume I, Statistics for Counties_ (Was.h.i.+ngton, 1942).
[155] C. T. Rice Herd Record Books, 1923-1937, in possession of Mrs.
Mary Scott.
[156] Derr and Beard Reports, nearly every year, see especially 1926, 1932.
PART III
_Professionalization and an Increased Standard of Living_
Specialization, whether in truck farming, dairying or poultry raising, streamlined the farmer's work and gave him an in-depth body of knowledge in a particular field. This expertise made for occupational prestige and increased status in non-farm communities; acknowledgment of the farmer as a professional developed markedly during the 1920s and 1930s.
Detailed knowledge had been essential to the general farmer but it was not widely recognized as a specialized skill. The professionalization taking place was also due to the farmer's own recognition of his unique role and his attempts to enhance it through farmer's clubs, educational opportunities and community projects. It also reflected a larger concern in the nation with upgrading standards and promoting solidarity among discrete occupational groups, a remnant from the movement towards efficiency and proficiency of the Progressive Era.[157]
An important advance for the farmer was the increased opportunities in agricultural education. The Hatch Act had provided for agricultural programs to be established in the Land Grant Colleges, and ensuing legislation in 1917 called for farm courses to be added to the high school curriculum.[158] This significant step was resisted for a short time in Fairfax County, where the school board preferred to teach Latin rather than agriculture in the schools, a policy held in disdain by local farmers: ”Latin was of no use unless you want to go around the barn and swear at some creature in an old language.”[159] When vocational training was finally adopted in 1919, the chances for farm children to keep up with the burgeoning technology and sharpen their acquired skills were immeasurably increased. In Virginia practical skills were taught but so were a program of social studies dealing with the quality of life in rural areas, focusing on problems of transportation, recreation, resource protection and consumption patterns.[160] Such official sanction for agricultural education was a recognition that farming was not merely a plodding or unskilled activity, but an exacting science which required intelligence and application to master.
Extensive study of agriculture in high school or college was the ideal, of course, but a number of programs were developed to further the established farmer's basic skills. Ray Harrison went to Baltimore to take a farmer's course in veterinary medicine and Wilson D. McNair travelled all the way to New Brunswick, New Jersey, to learn the most advanced methods of poultry farming. McNair later enrolled in a two-year course at VPI. Another farmer, Fred Curtice, from the Navy area, had degrees from Cornell University and took veterinary courses from George Was.h.i.+ngton University.[161] The county agent also designed extension schools for interested farmers. In February, 1933, for example, a two-day poultry school was attended by 75 farmers who heard reports by local farmers, talks by experts from USDA and VPI and workshops on topics such as ”Egg Grading,” ”Growing the Pullets,” and ”The Poultry Outlook for Virginia.”[162] Less intensive programs were also offered, such as the free showing of a dairy-oriented film, ”Safeguarding the Foster Mothers of the World.” ”A profitable evening is promised,”
announced the film's advertis.e.m.e.nt, ”especially to those interested in the economical production of milk by up-to-date methods.”[163]
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Fairfax County Grange meeting at a schoolhouse near Fairfax, c. 1940. Photo, Library of Congress.]