omes has been worth more, and the social influence of
these clubs has been considerable. The small farmer in the South is not
a social being, and anything which makes for cooperation is valuable.
The poultry clubs which were an extension of the canning club idea have
been successful. The club idea, indeed, has been extended beyond the
limits of the South. Congress, recognizing its value, has taken over and
extended the work and has supported it liberally. Today market-garden
clubs for the manufacturing cities, potato clubs, mother-and-daughter
clubs, and perhaps others have grown out of the vision of Dr. Knapp.

Though these activities have had a great effect in improving the South,
that section has not yet been transformed into an Eden. In spite of farm
demonstrations, experiment stations, and boys' and girls' clubs, the
stubborn inertia of a rural population fixed on the soil has only been
shocked, not routed. Much land is barely scratched instead of being
ploughed deep; millions of acres bear no cover crops but lose their
fertility through the leaching of valuable constituents during the
winter. Fertilizer is bought at exorbitant prices, while the richness of
the barnyard goes to waste, and legumes are neglected; land is allowed
to wash into gullies which soon become ravines. Farms which would
produce excellent corn and hay are supplied with these products from the
Middle West; millions of pounds of Western pork are consumed in regions
where hogs can be easily and cheaply raised; butter from Illinois or
Wisconsin is brought to sections admirably adapted to dairying; and
apples from Oregon and honey from Ohio are sold in the towns. In several
typical counties an average of $4,000,000 was sent abroad for products
which could easily have been raised at home. In Texas some of the bankers
have been refusing credit to supply merchants who do not encourage the
production of food crops as well as cotton.[1]

[Footnote 1: An illuminating series of studies of rural life is being
issued by the Bureau of Extension of the University of North Carolina.]

Throughout the South there are thousands of homes into which no
newspaper comes, certainly no agricultural paper, and in which there are
few books, except perhaps school books. The cooking is sometimes done
with a few simple utensils over the open fire. Water must be brought
from a spring at the foot of the hill, at an expenditure of strength and
endurance. The cramped house has