LIFE AND WORK AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY 191 



several years previously, but ox-eyed daisies had 

 virtually taken possession of it. Discussing this 

 apparent failure with a neighboring farmer, he 

 remarked casually that he would be willing to 

 gather the crop for half the hay " daisies made 

 pretty fair hay ! " He was right and I gained a 

 new idea. That field later, after it was drained 

 and coaxed, produced a little over forty-five bush- 

 els of wheat per acre the best crop I ever 

 raised.* 



About 1890, much discussion was going on in 

 the agricultural papers, as to the possibility of 

 growing alfalfa in the dairy districts of New 

 York. I studied the subject and planted a small 

 area in May of the following year, only to meet 

 with failure. Again I tried it, sowing as before 

 about the middle of May as I had been told to 

 do by those who thought they knew only to fail 

 again. Had I used my reason I should have 

 known better, since the best time for sowing other 

 kinds of clover was from a month to six weeks 

 earlier. For the third time, a quarter of an acre 

 of alfalfa was sown; but for convenience sake and 

 by mere chance, it was put in about the first 



* See frontispiece in " The Cereals of America," by Thomas 

 F. Hunt, Professor of Agronomy at Cornell University. 



