Biographies: J. P. Smith, 1952, Winn Parish, LA. Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** From: January 31, 1952 Winn Parish Enterprise "Know Your Neighbor" column Ag Teacher J. P. Smith Modernizes Curriculum J. P. Smith, Atlanta vocational agriculture teacher for the past 10 years, has made great progress toward "modernizing" the curriculum of his department, in keeping with the trend away from cotton and corn farming in this parish. Atlanta's ag department was the first in this parish, and probably the first in the state to have a full-scale forestry course and was the first in the state to have a demonstration forestry plot as an FFA project. Plain Dealing High School in Bossier Parish challenged Mr. Smith on this, stating that they had a demonstration plot, and claimed theirs as the first in the state. They were corrected when Mr. Smith informed them that this 10-acre plot, although the first of its particular kind in the state, was not an FFA plot, but a 4-H Club demonstration, perpetual-yield plot, divided into 10 one- acre plots. How did Smith know? He just happened to be the man who started it, surveyed it, and arranged for the trees to set out on it. All this when he was assistant county agent in Bossier for 15 months between hitches at teaching ag at Atlanta. Mr. Smith got the "pine tree bug" when a member of the CCC, working under Henry Hardtner at Olla, and has been keenly interested in forestry since that time. He recalls that Hardtner, called the "Father of Southern Forestry, would not hesitate to fire a man who backed his car over a small pine seedling. He is a native of Catahoula Parish and a graduate of LSU School of Forestry. The Atlanta vocational agriculture department started their forestry demonstration plot, and have made it into an almost perfect stand of pine timber. The plot has been temporarily abandoned, while classes now do improvement cutting on pine land owned by people in the Atlanta Community. At present, they are planning to cut posts and pulpwood, and thin and prune a 200 acre tract owned by M. F. Collier, who has agreed to donate all funds made off the sale of timber to the FFA chapter. Besides the actual field work done in forestry, the Atlanta teacher has classroom work beginning with elementary stages in eighth grade, and progressing to more complex studies of trees in 11th and 12th grades. In the eighth grade, Smith uses a state approved textbook, which was the first forestry textbook accepted by any state in the South. He was on the committee which approved it for classroom work. This book contains an introduction to courses later in high school, and has the latest information on forestry. At the end of their high school course, students have studied timber spotting, estimating, and the process of harvesting timber. Fifteen of the students have forestry plots at home as chapter projects. The total acreage is approximately 200 acres. Two graduates are now pursuing forestry courses in college, and others in junior and senior classes are now planning to study forestry. This program is appropriate in Winn, which according to Smith's figures derives 87 percent of its total income from timber. Other main points in Smith's program are farm shop and livestock. Although lacking shop facilities at present, it is planned to begin on this in the near future. In the livestock program, 64 young calves were imported last fall, with about 40 of these going to the FFA boys. When shipped, these calves range in age from four days to one week. An amazing percent of survival has been noted, only one of the 40 calves has died, a 2.5 percent mortality rate. According to figures from a well known dairying magazine, 40 percent deaths among newborn dairy calves is considered average. Many of the Atlanta calves were hand fed. "Cotton and corn are almost history in Winn now," Smith says. Hill farms are not adapted to tractor farming, and cotton can only be raised profitably on a large scale nowadays. Two things grow well on Winn land; grass and pine trees. With this in mind, and also the fact that trees and cattle require less effort to maintain than cotton, corn or other row crops, the Atlanta ag department is adapting its studies to the land, and before long stands a chance to produce some first rate foresters and cattle raisers, educating the people in the community to the advisability of changing their farm programs in the process.