58 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



ment. He contented himself with a mild- 

 sounding reflection: "We can tell what's go- 

 ing on in the soil, but we can't tell what's go- 

 ing on in the minds of the farmers. They 

 don't seem to be even interested in what we're 

 doing, to say nothing of being interested in 

 trying to do the same things themselves. Take 

 the matter of clover, for instance. Come over 

 and see our demonstration patches." We saw 

 as fine clover as a bee ever buzzed over. "Yet 

 you'll hear the farmers saying that clover can't 

 be grown here," our professor said. "I doubt 

 if there's one farmer in fifty, right in this dis- 

 trict, who's ever so much as seen our clover, 

 though this is a public institution, conducted 

 for the farmers' special benefit. It's the same 

 way with alfalfa, and the vetches, and soy 

 beans, and all the rest of that list. They grow 

 cowpeas a little; but there isn't one acre of 

 cowpeas planted where there ought to be a 

 thousand. The item of greatest importance in 

 farming these soils is altogether left out of the 

 farmer's practice. That's why the farms look 

 so lean and a lean farm makes lean farmers." 

 After those talks we would go out home and 

 sit on the fence some more and watch our man 

 at his job, figuring him out. One thing was 



