CHAPTER I 



Functions of the Plant Organs 



' I "HERE is a vast difference between operating a farm 

 * and a factory. The process of manufacture from the 

 receiving of the crude materials to the finished product 

 is entirely in the hands of the manufacturer. That is, 

 he can control every step in any process from start to 

 finish. It is not so with the farmer. The farmer can 

 control only the operation of the machinery. He has 

 to have a partner to enable him to successfully grow 

 crops. That partner is mother Earth. He has to 

 depend upon her for everything except the labor, which 

 is his part of the contract. 



Obviously the farmer who succeeds best must under- 

 stand Nature. It is a hopeless task to learn all the 

 whims and caprices of Nature, but it is possible to learn 

 how to treat mother Earth so that she can use these 

 whims and caprices of Nature to bring forth bountifully. 



The first step in this process is plowing. Many 

 important historical events offer the strongest evidence 

 that from the time man first began to till the soil he 

 discovered the necessity for stirring it in some manner 

 before any kind of a crop could be grown. Even the 

 greatest authors of antiquity, medieval and modern 

 times, speak of plowing. We have Benjamin Franklin 

 in our own colonial times who advised farmers "to plow 

 deep while sluggards sleep and you will have corn to sell 

 and keep." Pliny spoke in his treatise on agriculture, 



