Download or read book The Reluctant Farmer written by Roy Vernon Scott and published by Urbana : University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1971 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roy Scott here surveys the rise of agricultural extension education in the United States from the 1780s to 1914. He examines in detail attempts by the farm press, local agricultural clubs and societies, county fairs, and colleges to improve farming devices. Scott shows that these otherwise useful agencies and institutions all found it nearly impossible to convenice farmers of the value of science. There was a stigma attached to "book farming," and the abundance of cheap and fertile land strengthened stubborn convictions that new techniques were unnecessary and unwise. It remained for Seaman Knapp and several others to point the way through demonstration, to show farmers ways to more productive agriculture. The enactment of the Smith-Lever Act in 1914 provided legislative founding for the expansion of the demonstration method throughout the United States.