When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Up for sale a RARE "Teachers of Agriculture" Seaman A. Knapp Hand Signed 2X3 Card.
ES-4400
Seaman Asahel Knapp (December
16, 1833 – April 1, 1911) was a Union College graduate, Phi Beta Kappa member, physician, college instructor,
and, later, administrator, who took up farming late in life, moving to Iowa to
raise general crops and livestock. The first seeds of what would later become
an aoffering interest in farm demonstration were planted after he became active
in an organization called "The Teachers of Agriculture," attending
their meetings at the Michigan Agricultural College in
1881 and the Iowa Agricultural College in
1882. Knapp was so impressed with this teaching method that he drafted a bill
for the establishment of experimental research stations, which later was
introduced to the 47th Congress, laying the foundation for a nationwide network
of agricultural experiment stations. Knapp later served as the second president
of Iowa Agricultural College from 1883 to 1884, but his interest in
agricultural demonstration work did not occur until 1886, when he moved
to Louisiana and began developing a large tract of
agricultural land in the western part of this state. He founded Vinton, Louisiana, naming the town after his hometown Vinton, Iowa. Knapp could neither persuade local farmers to
adopt the techniques he had perfected on his farm nor enlist farmers from the
North to move to the region to serve collectively as a sort of educational
catalyst. What he could do, he reasoned, was to provide incentives for farmers
to settle in each township with the proviso that each, in turn, would
demonstrate to other farmers what could be done by adopting his improved
farming methods. The concept worked. Northern farmers began moving into the
region, and native farmers began buying into Knapp's methods. By 1902, Knapp
was employed by the government to promote good agricultural practices in the
South. Based on his own experience, Knapp was convinced that demonstrations
carried out by farmers themselves were the most effective way to disseminate
good farming methods. His efforts were aided by the onslaught of the boll weevil, a voracious cotton pest whose presence was felt
not only in Louisiana but also throughout much of the South. Damage associated
with this pest instilled fear among many merchants and growers that the cotton
economy would disintegrate around them. In the view of many, a farm
demonstration at the Walter G. Porter farm, now
a National Historic Landmark in Terrell, Texas, set up by the Department of Agriculture at the
urging of concerned merchants and growers, was the first in a series of steps
that eventually led to passage of the legislation that formalize Cooperative Extension work. USDA
officials were so impressed with the success of this demonstration that they
appropriated $250,000 to combat the weevil — a measure that also involved the
hiring of farm demonstration agents. By 1904, some 20 agents were The movement also appeared to be spreading Knapp is commemorated
in Washington, D.C. by a
bridge linking the U.S. Department of Agriculture Administration of Agriculture South He is interred at Iowa State University Cemetery, Ames,
Story, Iowa, USA, (see 'find-a-grave; Seaman Asahel Knapp'). Bradford Knapp, a son of Seaman Knapp, was the President of
the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, now known as Auburn University from 1928 to
1933 and the second president of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.