366 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



a row of wheat here that maybe from one grain a single plant will 

 come up and grow, and from the one by the side of it a half dozen, 

 and maybe the next one twenty-five or thirty. In that same lot 

 of plants we will find also that there are long heads and short ones, 

 well filled and poorly filled. In our classification we can have the 

 best list of small grain or best of rye, oats, wheat or clover. Always 

 quality should be kept in mind. 



Another thing that we can teach our people is in the prepara- 

 tion of products for the show, which is much the same thing as 

 preparing that product for the market. A vast number do not 

 understand the value or the method of preparing goods for market. 

 They have tried it a long time by putting the good eggs on top 

 and the best apples on top and the finest corn on top, and this 

 method has been proven a boomerang, as it reflects on him and to 

 his own detriment. 



We often have prizes for corn, say on white corn and on the 

 yellow corn; then we will have, maybe, the ten ears, one hundred 

 ears and single ears ; then we will have the sweepstakes prize over 

 all, on the single ear, ten and one hundred ears. The way it is 

 too often arranged, the man who wins the first prize in any class 

 is entitled also to a sweepstakes prize. In other words, he is 

 winning two prizes when possibly the winning of these would not 

 be exactly fair. By the score card there may be but one-fourth of 

 a point difference. The one wins two big prizes and the other gets 

 nothing. To offset that condition or to remedy it, would be to first 

 place one prize on the best sample in the class, then place the prizes 

 from that down. It thus avoids one man receiving two large 

 prizes when the prizes are possibly closer together. This stimulates 

 effort among a great number of people, and the classification should 

 be made just as broad as the premium list will justify. 



