1 88 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



results. The barley shoots up ahead of the oats 

 and becomes well developed in grains before the 

 oats throws up its seed stalks and heads out. Then 

 when it does, the barley is hidden and supported 

 till harvest time. I tried year after year to excel 

 this neighbor but only once succeeded in raising 

 a trifle more than eighty bushels per acre. How- 

 ever, I did succeed while at Cornell, in more than 

 doubling the average yield secured by my prede- 

 cessors. 



Not long after I came to Cornell I made a visit 

 to Fayette, Seneca County, and while there I drew 

 out of those superior Dutch farmers about all they 

 knew of New York agriculture. It must be re- 

 membered that almost all of my adult life had 

 been spent on the prairies of the West and all I 

 knew of eastern farming had been learned in my 

 boyhood at East Varick. So once again I had to 

 become a painstaking student in order to fit myself 

 to cope with New York conditions. 



Let me go back to the history of that oat field ! 

 After the first oat harvest the land was prepared 

 and seeded in September to winter wheat. About 

 two weeks afterwards six quarts of timothy seed 

 per acre were sowed among the young wheat 

 plants. Parenthetically I may say, that if grass 



