48 THREE ACRES AND LIBERTY 



upon one soil formation under different climatic conditions 

 in one season, does not necessarily find a duplicate in any 

 other locality, and the experience is that what is accomplished 

 in one year would not be duplicated on the same soil and 

 under the same management again in several years, for the 

 conditions under which agriculture is carried on are so many 

 of them outside of the control of the operator that it is very 

 difficult to predict results or to attain any fixed standard. 

 This is necessarily so with an operation which has so many 

 uncertain factors to deal with as agriculture. Humidity 

 of the atmosphere and of the soil, the available plant food 

 in the soil, methods of tillage, fertilizers used, recurrence of 

 frosts, amount of sunlight, the altitude and latitude of 

 different localities, all have a bearing upon crop production. 

 It is, therefore, very difficult to fix any approximate standard 

 or average production for any particular locality without 

 basing it upon a long series of years. I think, however, 

 that it is a subject worthy of agitation, and it might inspire 

 agriculturists to better work were such an ideal fixed upon." 



This indicates that each experiment station or progressive 

 farmer or teacher of agriculture might advantageously estab- 

 lish the local "Bogie score" of what might fairly be expected. 



We know how misleading averages are. The man who 

 tried to wade across a stream whose average depth was two 

 feet, was drowned. "The writer used to go to a fishing 

 club of which Cornelius Vanderbilt was a member. One of 

 the standard jokes there was that the thirty members are 

 worth on an average over two million apiece, that is, Cor- 

 nelius sixty millions, and the rest of us (comparatively) 

 nothing. Which are you to be? A Vanderbilt among 

 cultivators, or the other fellow who makes the 'average'?" 

 (" Money Making in Free America, " by the Author.) 



