AGRICULTURE A LEARNED PROFESSION 15 



the beginning of my professional life, the magnificent 

 problem of agricultural science, and although I have 

 devoted much of my life to the study of that problem, 

 I realize to-day how utterly unsolved it still is. 



Many years ago, when the scientific sun was just 

 rising on the general farmer, I tried to put some of 

 these ideas into rime. My purpose was to portray, 

 if possible, the ideas which were planted in the mind of 

 the old farmer when he first attended the Farmers' In- 

 stitute. These rimes run as follows: 



FARMER JOHNSON RELATES HIS IMPRESSIONS OF 

 THE " INSTITOOT." 1 



You seen the notice, William, of the meetin' up to town, 

 Of the farmers in the Institoot, they come from all aroun'. 

 There wuz Billy Woods from Haw Patch, and old Sam Mapes 



from Hope, 

 And Peter Hughes and Barney Flinn and Tecumseh Sherman 



Swope. 



And half the town from Taylorsville, and you had orter seen 

 Judge Edgington a mixin' round amongst us playin' green. 

 And Lawyer Sims wuz also there, you see it seems ez how 

 He's up for the ligislatur and wants to lam to plow. 



And the fellers from the College of Agricultur, they 

 Wuz thick ez lightning bugs in June and had a heap to say. 

 Ther wuz one they called a chemist, and he kind a seemed to 



know 

 All that wuz in the air above and in the ground below. 



He sed we needed nitergin, and showed us how the stuff 

 Wuz awful high and skeerce for crops, while in the air enough 

 Wuz found to make us 'tarnal rich if we could only git 

 Some cheap and sarten projeck of hitchin' on to hit. 



He sed that peas and clover and other crops like them, 

 Wuz jist the stuff to do it and store it in the stem, 



i " Songs of Official Agricultural Chemists," Washington, 1800. 



