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Iniversity of the State of New York Bulletin

Entered as second-class matter August 2, 1913, at the Post Office at Albany, N. Y., under the
act of August 24, 1912

Published fortnightly

No. 654 ALBANY, N. Y. January I, 1918

DIRECTORS OF AGRICULTURE

REGULATIONS GOVERNING APPOINTMENT AND DUTIES

AUTHORIZATION

The Division of Agricultural and Industrial Education of The
University of the State of New York is charged with the general
supervision of vocational instruction and with the duty of gather-
ing and making known all obtainable helpful information upon the
subject.

Chapter 560 of the Education Law of 1917, as amended, provides
for the employment of directors of agriculture in cities, towns and
school districts not maintaining a school of agriculture, mechanic
arts and homemaking. This bulletin furnishes information which
will assist local authorities in employing the director of agriculture
in accordance with the Education Law and the rules and regulations
of the Commissioner of Education. The section of the law referring
to the employment of a director of agriculture is quoted in the back
of this pamphlet.

PURPOSE OF THE WORK

The purposes of this act are:

t To make it possible for one or more country school districts
not maintaining a school of agriculture, mechanic arts and home-
making to employ a person who shall devote his time to interesting
young people in practical agriculture and to giving technical instruc-
tion accompanying their practical work.

2 To encourage cities and villages not maintaining a school of
agriculture, mechanic arts and homemaking to employ supervisors
for school, home and vacant lot gardening.

ORGANIZATION OF THE WORK

The law provides that any city, town or school district may
employ or join in the employment of a director of agriculture.

T40R-Ap-18-1700

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The Commissioner of Education will apportion to each city, town
or school district employing or joining in the employment of a
director of agriculture a sum equal to one-half the salary paid to
such director, not exceeding in each year the sum of six hundred
dollars for each director employed. Where the apportionment is
made on account of a director employed by two or more towns or
districts, it shall be apportioned to such towns or districts in accord-
ance with the proportionate amount paid by each of these towns or
districts under the contract with such director. This bill
does not provide for the employment of an assistant director or
an additional director by a body which has already employed one
director of agriculture.

UNIFORM REQUIREMENTS

1 The director of agriculture, in order to meet the requirements
for state aid, shall devote his full time for the period of employ-
ment to the type of work prescribed on page 3.

2 The director of agriculture must possess the qualifications
prescribed on page 2.

3 The body employing a director of agriculture shall at the time
of making an appointment submit to the Commissioner of Educa-
tion for his approval a plan of the proposed work for the ensuing
year or terms of employment. This plan shall show: (a) term of
employment, (b) salary to be paid, (c) body or bodies employing,
(d) types of work to be undertaken, (e) provision made for trans-
portation of director, (f) cooperating agencies.

4 The director of agriculture shall make such reports as shall be
called for by the Commissioner of Education.

5 The body or bodies employing a director of agriculture shall
report to the Commissioner of Education notice of such appoint-
ment within ten days of the time the appointment is made.

QUALIFICATIONS OF DIRECTORS

1 A director of agriculture should be thoroughly conversant
through practical experience with the type of work which he is to
supervise.

2 A director of agriculture must have completed a four-year
high school course of standard grade or have had equivalent edu-
cation.

3 A director of agriculture must have had at least two years of
technical training in agriculture.

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Wherever possible, directors of agriculture should have the same
qualifications as those set up for teachers of agriculture in voca-
tional schools.

The above rules, however, permit:a temporary certificate to be
issued to a candidate who does not fully meet the foregoing require-
ments if he establishes to the satisfaction of the Commissioner of
Education that he is qualified to do the work outlined in this bulletin.

SUGGESTED TYPES OF WORK

Junior home project work. The purpose of this work is to
encourage boys and girls to undertake agricultural enterprises
adapted to their home conditions. The projects may include poultry,
pig and calf raising, growing a certain area of general garden or
corn, potatoes or other farm crop. It is the aim to organize the
home projects and related school work on such a basis as to enable
the: project workers to derive the maximum amount of pleasure
and profit from their work and to experience the growth that results
from directed play, supervised study and productive effort.
Through the junior home project work it is hoped to give many of
our country boys and girls such an interest in farm life and the
farm business that more of them will be induced to take up farming
as their life work. Those project workers who desire Regents
credit for their work may secure such credit under the following
conditions :

1 A boy or a girl may receive academic credit to the extent of
one Regents count in any given year for the completion of a junior
home project. Not more than two Regents counts, for the com-
pletion of two junior home projects, will be granted an individual.

2 The project worker shall be above the sixth grade in the public
schools or twelve years of age or older. High school pupils who
have enrolled in a vocational course in agriculture or homemaking
may not undertake junior home project work for credit.

3 At least thirty-six periods of forty-five minutes each, or an
equivalent amount of time, shall be devoted to the study of the
junior home project under the direction of a person designated by
the superintendent of schools.

_ 4 The home project shall be visited or the work shall be inspected
at least three times during the period the project is in progress
(preferably at the beginning, during, and at the end of the work)
by the superintendent of schools or some person designated by him.

4

5 A complete and accurate report, including the labor and cash
record of the project, shall be presented to the superintendent of
schools when the work is finished.

6 The home work must meet the minimum requirements pre-
scribed for class B or C in the projects outlined in this pamphlet.

7 The Regents count granted for the completion of a junior home
project will be credited on the official records when the project
worker has actually been enrolled in a high school in New York
State, on the certification of the superintendent of schools of the
district wherein the work was done to the Commissioner of Educa-
tion that such credit is due.

School, home, vacant lot and community gardens. The
director of agriculture should arouse interest in and should super-
vise the making of school, home, vacant lot and community gardens
in his territory. Through this work it is hoped to induce more
people to raise a portion of their own food supply. After arousing
interest in the work of garden making, the director of agriculture
should be prepared to give definite directions in regard to the prepa-
ration of ground, selection of seed, planting, fertilizing and culti-
vating of garden vegetables.

Lectures and field trips in agriculture for teachers and pupils.
When employed throughout the year or through the winter, the
director of agriculture should organize courses in garden making,
poultry raising and along the lines of other project work which
should be correlated closely with the practical work which has been
carried on during the preceding summer or which is to be carried
on during the succeeding summer. During the summer the director
of agriculture may also devote considerable time to the giving of
lectures or demonstrations on various phases of the project or
garden work. In many cases regular classes may be organized to
study the theoretical side of gardening in order .to make the prac-
tical work more effective. Field trips to adjoining farms or gardens
may also be organized for the sake of inspecting interesting types
of work and learning from the experiences of others.

School fairs or exhibits at county fairs. At the end of the
growing season it is often advisable that the director of agriculture
shall organize a fair or an exhibit where there can be shown some
of the results of the summer’s work. In some cases county fair
associations have provided for a separate department for this work

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and special prizes have been offered for the best project or the best
gardens of the season. Such exhibits add much to the interest of
the work and possess considerable educational value if carried out
in the proper manner.

DESCRIPTION OF TYPES OF WORK CARRIED ON
DURING THE SUMMER OF 1917
A number of communities in the State employed a director of

agriculture during the summer of 1917. A description of the work
carried on in a city and in a rural community is described below.

Work of the Director of Agriculture in the City of Troy for 1917

The gardening work at Troy during the summer of 1917 was
confined within the city limits and was thus distinctive from other
supervised gardening operations conducted over large rural areas.
On April 20th lecturing work was begun and three lectures on the
early work in the development of the garden were given in each of
the twenty public schools and in the four parochial schools. This
instruction was given to all children of the fourth grades and above
who were interested in the garden work or who had signified their
intention or desire to grow a garden. At these meetings mimeo-
graph copies of sample garden plans and circulars containing direc-
tions for planning and planting home gardens were distributed to
each pupil and the work thoroughly explained. Suggestions for
neatness and economy in planting and as to what vegetables should
be planted and the time of planting supplemented the printed infor-
mation. These lectures were about half an hour in duration, after
which ample time was given to a discussion of individual problems
and to answering questions in regard to the work.

In all these talks the back yard or “home garden” was kept
strictly in mind and the work based as closely as possible on the
average conditions confronting the child in his own back yard. The
most intensive methods of simple gardening were given, such as
methods of intercropping and succession cropping in order to have
the child realize the greatest benefit from the plot both from fresh
vegetables and from vegetables for storage and canning for winter
use. An illustrated lecture with views on school gardening as carried
on in different parts of the State was given later in all the schools
and suggestions were given as to how the various operations should
be carried out in connection with the work at Troy.

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Land was provided for children who had no back yards for garden
purposes. Unused fields were divided into plots for this purpose
and field demonstrations in planting were given at these plots. Two
hundred dollars worth of government seed was secured through
the efforts of two local papers and was parceled out free of charge
to children who were unable to buy seeds. The greatest difficulty
in the work was to secure proper assistant supervisors with suff-
cient garden knowledge and experience to aid the children in their
actual work and also to act as judges of the gardens for the dis-
tribution of the $170 in prizes offered by the Troy Record. Six
part-time teachers as assistants, although appointed a little late in
the season, placed the work on a firm basis of organization and con-
tributed much to the success of the season’s undertaking. All
these assistants had had some previous gardening experience. They
were given the registration cards representing gardens in the various
districts over which they were to have supervision and were
instructed to aid the children by advice, suggestion and encourage-
ment. Each child was visited at least three times, although some
of the assistants made as many as eight and ten visits to particular
gardens and supervised as high as three hundred gardens each.

It was the duty of the director during the summer months to give
seasonal advice to the assistants, visit gardens where additional aid
was required, give advice to citizens as well as children, aid in the
work at the various school plots, seek out gardens having indefinite
addresses, accompanying the assistants on some of their visits and
holding weekly meetings with them. These meetings were held
each Wednesday morning at nine o’clock at the office of the super-
intendent of schools, when all difficulties were straightened out, dis-
cussions on the work held and advice and instruction given. Each
of the assistants received $50 for the season’s work.

Following is a brief summary of the work:

Twenty-four city schools were represented. Sixteen hundred
twenty-nine children registered and started gardens. Of this num-
ber, 1348 carried their gardens through to satisfactory completion
and were considered in the awarding of prizes and honors. In
addition to these children’s gardens, it is estimated that fully two
thousand adults grew gardens either in their own yards or in com-
munity gardens and received instruction and help from the director.
Approximately 1500 bushels of potatoes were grown on vacant lots
in the city, totaling an area of about 30 acres. The total area of
garden plots within the city was estimated at 120 acres, 40 acres of

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which had not been used previously. No figures are available for
the total amounts of fresh vegetables, canned goods and winter
supplies which were grown, but it is safe to say that at least the
families of the participants secured the bulk of their vegetable
supply in this way.

The school authorities of Troy are firmly convinced of the value
of this undertaking and are making plans for the continuation and
betterment of the work during the coming year. Competent assist-
ants will again be provided and the director wll give special atten-
tion to work with them in the way of demonstration work at some
of the gardens. Voluntary outside aid was found to be of little use
and this feature of the work has been discouraged.

Work of a Director of Agriculture in a Rural Community in
Montgomery County

The work at Amsterdam during the summer of 1917 is a good
example of an agricultural director’s work in rural sections. The
director supervised the work in five townships covering an area of
20 miles in diameter. The work was started in April by visiting
each of the forty-six schools with outlines of the garden plans, seed
tables and general instructions. The size of the gardens was placed
at a minimum of 30 by 50 feet. Some were one-half of an acre or
more in extent. Three hundred five children grew gardens. Approx-
imately 36 acres of land were tilled. Four assistants (rural school
teachers) were employed during July and August at a total expense
of $250. The director was employed from April 19th to October
19th at a salary of $715, including the amount allowed for auto
expenses. Six hundred visits were made by the assistants, seven
hundred visits by the director, who traveled 2600 miles by auto, 150
miles by horse and 300 miles by rail. The value of the products
from all the gardens was computed at $3870.

These children’s gardens were in most cases an addition to the
family gardens. Considerable canning was done. It was estimated
that only about $500 worth of products would have been raised had
this gardening movement not been started. A large display of
garden products was made at the county fair.

This year all the work will be conducted on the junior home
project basis. A variety of projects, such as pig raising and poultry,
will be conducted in addition to the garden projects. The school
study in connection with these projects is being directed by the
various teachers. Six conferences of teachers are held during the

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year by the district superintendent. At each of these conferences
a definite amount of time is devoted by the director of agriculture
to discussion of the project work and problems connected with it.
The director and district superintendent have outlined thirty-six
general lessons which include material on all the projects which
are being undertaken. These lessons are printed and placed in the
hands of each of the teachers. Each pupil keeps a notebook which
the director inspects upon his visits to the school. _ With so many
schools and so much traveling to be done, it was found necessary
to have the teachers give the instructional work to the pupils. The
director helps the teachers with any problems which arise in the
course of their work. The plan of using teacher assistants during
the summer is to be continued. The director will make at least one
visit to each individual project, if possible, throughout the summer
and will hold demonstration meetings wherever a group of assistants
or a number of children can be assembled.

It is planned to have township fairs instead of sending the ma-
terial to the county fair. This should encourage more children to
make exhibits and it is believed to be a better basis of competition.

SUMMARY OF FOUR TYPE PROJECTS

Home garden project (Montgomery county)

The following products were raised in one garden having an area
of 10,000 square feet:

3 bushels of tomatoes.... $3. 6 bunches of onions..... 5
200 heads of cabbage...... 14. 25 bunches of radishes.... .38

O dozen Nears) FOL cOnne .90 30 bunches of beets....... .90
60 bushels of potatoes.... 75. IAB GENTS) OW WEISS cap soscc 9°73
80 quarts of string beans.. 4. 15 dozen cucumbers ...... 1.50
100 quarts of field beans... Be ——
50 bunches of turnips..... 1.50 $123.56
15) bushels) “ofcarnotsee ss 7250

The total cost of the garden, including too hours of labor for the
boy, 33 hours horse labor and one ton of hen manure was $44.41,
leaving a profit of $79.15.

Pig project (Tioga county)

The pig cost $5 and weighed 12% pounds at the date of pur-
chase. In 160 days the pig had gained 220% pounds, having grown
into a 233 pound hog in a little over five months with an average
gain of 1.37 pounds a day. During this time the pig consumed

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350 pounds of mill feed in addition to roughage. The total receipts
from the dressed pork were $34.25. The expense of feeding and
_ labor totaled $19.75, leaving a net gain of $14.50.

Poultry project (Broome county)

The project consisted of raising chicks from four settings of
eggs under hens. Records cover the period from April 13 to Octo-
ber 1, 1916. The boy spent 27 hours on his project, fed 314 pounds
of feed, sold 13 broilers, and inventoried 10 pullets and 1 cock on
October 1st. The charges totaled $13.49; credits $19.15; net
profit $5.66.

Bean project (Chautauqua county)

This project consisted of one-eighth of an acre of marrow beans.
The boy spent 45 hours on the project himself and was assisted
with three hours of man labor and two hours of horse labor in
preparation of the ground. The total charges were $9.05; receipts
from three bushels of beans and bean fodder were $38.50, leaving
a net profit of $29.45.

BOUCATION LAW RELATIVE, TOs DIRECTORS OF
AGRICULTURE

Section 1 Sections 601 and 604 of chapter 21 of the Laws of
1909, entitled “An act relating to education, constituting chapter 16
of the Consolidated Laws,” as amended by chapter 140 of the Laws
of 1910 and chapter 747 of the Laws of 1913, are hereby amended
to read as follows:

§ 601 Establishment of such schools; directors of agriculture,
mechanic arts and homemaking. The board of education of any
union free school district shall also establish, acquire and maintain
such schools for like purposes whenever such schools shall be author-
ized by a district meeting. The trustees or board of trustees of a
common school district may establish a school or a course in agri-
culture, mechanic arts and homemaking, when authorized by a dis-
trict meeting. The board of education of a city, town or union free
school district, not maintaining a school of agriculture, mechanic
arts and homemaking, may employ a director of agriculture. The
boards of education or trustees of two or more districts or towns
may by joint contract employ such a director and determine in such
contract as to the portion of the compensation which is to be paid
by each district. The qualifications of a person employed as such

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director shall be prescribed by the Commissioner of Education, as
provided by law in respect to teachers employed in public schools
of the State.

$ 604 State aid for general industrial schools, trade schools,
and schools of agriculture, mechanic arts and homemaking.
1 The Commissioner of Education in the annual apportionment of
the state school moneys shall apportion therefrom to each city and
union free school district for each general industrial school, trade
school, part-time or continuation school or evening vocational
school, maintained therein for thirty-six weeks during the school
year and employing one teacher whose work is devoted exclusively
to such school, and having an enrolment of at least fifteen pupils
and maintaining an organization and a course of study, and con-
ducted in a manner approved by him, a sum equal to two-thirds of
the salary paid to such teacher, but not exceeding one thousand
dollars.

2 He shall also apportion in like manner to each city, union free
school district or common school district for each school of agri-
culture, mechanic arts and homemaking, maintained therein for
thirty-six weeks during the school year, and employing one teacher
whose work is devoted exclusively to such school, and having an
enrolment of at least fifteen pupils and maintaining an organization
and course of study and conducted in a manner approved by him,
a sum equal to two-thirds of the salary paid to such teacher. Such
teacher may be employed for the entire year, and during the time
that the said school is not open shall be engaged in performing
such educational services as may. be required by the board of edu-
cation or trustees, under regulations adopted by the Commissioner.
of Education. Where a contract is made with a teacher for the
entire year and such teacher is employed for such period, as herein
provided, the Commissioner of Education shall make an additional
apportionment to such city or district of the sum of two hundred
dollars. But the total amount apportioned in each year on account
of such teacher shall not exceed one thousand dollars.

3 The Commissioner of Education shall also make an additional
apportionment to each city and union free school district for each
additional teacher employed exclusively in the schools mentioned
in the preceding subdivisions of this section for thirty-six weeks
during the school year, a sum equal to one-third of the salary paid
to each such additional teacher, but not exceeding one thousand
dollars for each teacher.

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4 The Commissioner of Education shall also apportion in like
manner to each city, town, and school district employing,. or joining
in the employment ‘of, a’ director of agriculture, as authorized by
section 601 of this chapter, and establishing, maintaining and con-
ducting an’ organization and course of instruction in such subject,
approved by the Commissioner of Education, a sum equal to one-
half of the salary paid to such director by such city, town or dis-
trict, or by two or more of such towns or districts, not exceeding
in each year the sum of six hundred dollars for each director
employed. Where the apportionment is made on account of a
director employed by two or more towns or districts, it shall be
apportioned to such towns or districts in accordance with the pro-
portionate amount paid by each of such towns or districts under
the contract made with such director.

5 The Commissioner of Education, in his discretion, may appor-
tion to a district or city maintaining such schools or employing
such teachers for a shorter time than thirty-six weeks, or for a less
time than a regular school day, an amount pro rata to the time such
schools are maintained or such teachers are employed. This sec-
tion shall not be construed to entitle manual training high schools
or other secondary schools maintaining manual training departments,
to an apportionment of funds herein provided for.

Any person employed as teacher as provided herein may serve
as principal of the school in which the said industrial or trade
school or course, or school or course of agriculture, mechanic arts
and homemaking, is maintained.

LIBRARY oF CONGRESS

IAIN

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