THE WORK OF TODAY. 385 



grower will admit that a knowledge of this simple yet scientific botan- 

 ical fact and its application to the business of raising strawberries is 

 essential to success. But very few of our general farmers are raisers 

 of strawberries, you say, and so have little use for that fact. Here conies 

 in an illustration of how facts are organized into a science, and by get- 

 ting knowledge thus systematized, a little will go a good way. A very 

 little study of botany would show what is meant by staminate and pis- 

 tillate flowers in general, and the fact, once properly acquired, has an 

 exceedingly wide application. Then it is so linked to other facts that 

 when gained, countless other facts are also gained, and but little effort 

 is required to add vastly to the store of knowledge. 



But I did not intend and have not the time to thus generalize. 

 Let us ask the farmers of Missouri a few more questions, and we will 

 try and confine them to familiar things. 



How many of you out of 1,000 can tell where are the stamens and 

 the pistils of acorn plant ? What is the office of the pollen dust that 

 falls from the tassel so freely during the growth of the plant, and how 

 is the office performed ? How many can tell anything about the root 

 system of a corn plant, how extensive it is, the prevailing direction 

 and manner of growth, what its offices are and how performed, what 

 these roots take from the soil, how this material is incorporated into 

 the substance of the plant, and a hundred other facts that come troop- 

 ing along if one but gets hold of the leading ones? And who will say 

 that the possessor and user of these facts will not be a better corn 

 raiser than one who does not have them. A very cursory study of the 

 root system of a plant will modify the methods of culture to be ap- 

 plied to it, and as soon as the difference in the manner of growth of 

 different classes of plants is understood, the raiser of these plants 

 will at once modify his methods of culture to suit the different require- 

 ments, and every fact which he may gain and which has a bearing 

 in this direction will have its effect in determining the character of the 

 method. 



But we might go on and ask similar questions in all the depart- 

 ments of farming, in stock-breeding and feeding, dairying, etc., and we 

 would find much the same kind of answer^. Should we ask about the 

 cost of producing any given kind of crop, we would still get very un- 

 satisfactory answers. Very few indeed of our farmers can tell with 

 anything like accuracy the cost of growing a bushel of corn or wheat, 

 a thousand pound steer or a barrel of apples. Would you expect to 

 find such a state of affairs in connection with other lines of business ? 

 Until our farmers have been brought to a higher appreciation of the 



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