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
Washington 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 advertisement, "especially to those interested in
the economical production of milk by up-to-date methods."[163]

[Illustration: The Fairfax County Grange meeting at a scho