58 INDIAN CORN. 



But the amount above stated may be confidently 

 taken, for the present, as a possible yield, having been 

 verified, on a small area of ground, in a number of 

 instances. It is, in fact, probable that many farmers 

 have produced, without being aware of it, even more 

 than this, relatively, on limited portions of their fields. 



Though it is, doubtless, true enough that results 

 from small areas are not to be taken as certainties for 

 large crops, yet it is also equally true, that experi- 

 ments on a small scale are important and valuable for 

 determining the best methods, and for proving, not 

 indeed the certainties, but the possibilities for entire 

 crops. The large yield obtained on one hundred 

 square feet will not, of course, be so easily reached on 

 an acre ; yet the experiment, though small, will, if 

 successful, be the sure precursor of a similar yield on 

 a larger scale ; for whatever is actually accomplished 

 in the one case becomes undoubtedly possible in the 

 other. 



But after all that can be said, it must be admitted 

 that the value of a large yield depends on what it 

 costs to produce it. Nor is it at all likely that such a 

 yield as the one above stated to be possible, would be 

 found, in the first instance, a profitable crop. The 

 processes by which it would be at first arrived at, 

 would probably make it more than usually expensive. 

 Still it would be a valuable result, and a point gained 

 in the right direction. To reduce the cost of such a 

 yield, would be a subsequent achievement, and one 

 certain to follow, in due season. It is thus in a grad- 

 ual way, and by single steps, that all valuable progress 



