F. Southall Farrar, farm demonstration agent for
Southside Virginia, organized the state's first
corn clubs for boys in 1909. Such clubs, a feature
of the nation's emerging agricultural extension
movement, had originated in the Midwest to
promote progresstve farming methods and improve
rural life. Farrar's initial recruits, 100 Dinwiddie
and Chesterfield County boys, each grew one
acre of corn and, on average, outproduced local
farms by more than three times. In 1910 Ella
Agnew established the first canning clubs for
Virginta girls. By the early 1920s, these
organizations for children, admintstered by
Virginia Cooperative Extension after 1914,
evolved into 4-H clubs.
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