DIVISION AND SPECIALIZATION 147 



intelligent? No. His son who is here with 

 us has had better educational advantages. 

 Then why is it? 



"Because," says the son of the old-world 

 farmer, "my father does not ask his land only 

 if it will grow wheat. He asks it if it will 

 grow wheat better than any other crop. If 

 it would grow barley better than wheat he 

 would grow barley instead of wheat in his 

 rotation. But it happens that this particular 

 corner of his farm grows wheat better than 

 anything else. If I went back home and took 

 some seed corn with me and planted corn 

 where he grows wheat, it might happen that 

 the corn crop would be a failure, even with 

 the best cultivation. My father plants the crop 

 that is best fitted to his own land." 



How does he know what crop is best fitted 

 for his land? 



His father told him, and his father's father, 

 and so on for many generations. Agricul- 

 ture is further developed as an art than as a 

 science and always will be. Science cannot 

 tell what crop is best fitted for certain land. 

 But science plus experience can. Knowledge 

 is built on experience, and after a thousand 

 years of experience the old-world farmer has 



