In 1909, F. Southall Farrar, farm demonstration agent for Southside Virginia, organized Virginia’s first corn clubs for boys as part of the nation’s emerging agricultural extension movement, which had begun in the Midwest to promote progressive farming methods and improve rural life. Farrar’s first recruits, 100 boys from Dinwiddie and Chesterfield counties, each grew one acre of corn and on average produced more than three times as much as local farms. In 1910, Ella Agnew established Virginia’s first canning clubs for girls. By the early 1920s, these children’s organizations, administered by Virginia Cooperative Extension after 1914, had evolved into 4-H clubs.