Enemies in the Field 343 



tioned in the corn with his father's rifle against hordes of gray 

 squirrels. Squirrel meat made good stew; and squirrel skins, 

 dried on the barn door, were worth a dime apiece when the 

 fur-buyers came through the country in the spring. Gray 

 squirrels put more than one farmer's son through college. 



Science taught the farmer to give his fields clean cultivation 

 right up to the fences as protection against pests. It taught 

 him to burn the rubbish and stubble; to plow in the fall in 

 order to kill the grubs of cut-worms; to spread poison bait for 

 grasshoppers which came, every so often, in a dark cloud out 

 of the west, and would eat up a farm in a day. Above all, it 

 urged him to rotate the crops as a means of prevention against 

 diseases and to breed corn which was smut-resistant. When 

 the European corn-borer made its appearance here, in broom 

 corn imported from Italy or Hungary, the farmers turned 

 naturally to the Department of Agriculture for help and ad- 

 vice. Abraham Lincoln's dream of a federal government so 

 organized that it could serve the man on the land was coming 

 true. 



During the forty years between 1855 and 1895, the time 

 required to produce one bushel of corn was cut from four 

 hours and thirty-four minutes, to forty-one minutes. The 

 steel plow which superseded Jethro Wood's invention in cast 

 iron had had a lot to do with that. Now the manufacturers 

 were offering farmers motor plows, mechanical corn-pickers 

 and corn-huskers; all guaranteed to cut still further the time 

 required to raise a crop. Here was science again, holding out 

 the promise of leisure to the man on the land. 



Henry Ford demonstrated that by employing factory meth- 

 ods and harnessing tractors, seven days' work in a season were 

 sufficient to sow, cultivate and reap a harvest. 



Farmers who had been convinced of the benefits of science 

 in the realm of chemistry and botany were open to conviction 

 by salesmen, and their sons who would rather drive a $2200 

 motor truck than a four-mule team, that motor power on the 

 farm ensured bigger profits. Didn't cutting down the hours of 



