412 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



THE MAN BEHIND THE PLOW 



vs. 



THE SCIENTIFIC FADDIST 



By A. F. JOHNSTON 



TO THE man behind the plow, who is blest with good 

 judgment and common sense, should credit be given 

 in a large measure to successful farming the world over, 

 and to him, therefore, should the public look for advice 

 and instruction far more than it does. Perhaps in no 

 section of the United States is this more applicable than 

 in the arid states of the west where other problems than 

 those of tillage and selection of crops enter as a factor 

 into the farm management. Would it were better under- 

 stood and the methods of the practical successful farmer 

 adopted more generally. It is to this end that I wish to 

 present a few facts that have come to my notice within 

 recent years. 



management, a knowledge that many a farmer would 

 value, together with the practical training from the farmer 

 himself pur agricultural students have a large field of use- 

 fulness in the development of agriculture, but they must 

 work in harmonious co-operation with the practical farmer 

 or their efforts will count for little or nothing, and every 

 such a failure is a stumbling block for other students. 

 It is not without a knowledge of conditions that the writer 

 feels the necessity of defending the farmer and urging 

 the college and department man to deal by him as they 

 would be dealt by. If they are wise they will profit by 

 their intercourse with the man behind the plow, and if 

 they are just they will give him credit for having helped 

 them. 



Must Have Practical Experience. 



In the western colleges and universities irrigation in- 

 struction is supplementing the agricultural course, and 

 the profession of irrigation engineer has been added to 

 the list of vocations. It is a course that appeals to the 

 western boy and already the majority of the institutions, 

 with this course included, find it a popular one. Instruc- 

 tion along the line of irrigation engineering is very essen- 





Cement Reservuir No. '2, Patterson Ranch, California. 



Much has been said and written for a number -of 

 years regarding scientific farming, and almost all the agri- 

 cultural colleges have made this feature a -part of their 

 course of instruction, some of them having systems highly 

 perfected. The United States Department of Agriculture 

 has also taken it up through its bulletins and its trained 

 men in the field to instruct the farmers. 



Now, while we, who have studied the subject from 

 the farm and the classroom, contend that agricultural edu- 

 cation is a good thing and to be highly commended if 

 rightly applied, we also feel quite confident in saying that 

 it can never successfully accomplish its object until the 

 college man or department agent takes a course of in- 

 struction from the man behind the plow. 



In many cases the know-it-all student or agent does 

 more harm than good because his judgment and common 

 sense in farming affairs has never been given 'proper 

 training. Many times he offends the man whose years of 

 rich experience should be considered and information is 

 refused by the farmer because of this attitude, and it 

 naturally follows that he discredits the institution he rep- 

 resents. 



With the knowledge of how to apply science to farm 



tial and we believe it means a broader and richer develop- 

 ment of western lands in the future. But here again, 

 ^perhaps even to a greater extent, is the need of practical 

 experience only to be acquired from the farmer who has 

 conquered this phase of agriculture by his good judgment 

 and common sense. 



Unless the student realizes this and augments his 

 college education with such training he will not go far. 

 The knowledge of how to irrigate can never be conquered 

 on paper, nor can it be successfully rounded out by the 

 summer field parties, instructive and valuable as they 

 are. It is to the man behind the plow that the student 

 must go for his best object lessons. To illustrate this I 

 wish to cite examples of successful and unsuccessful men 

 in their relations to the practical farmer. One example 

 relates to personal contact with the farmers while the 

 second has reference to articles published for the benefit 

 of the man behind the plow. 



Two graduate students in agriculture were appointed 

 to collect information on different crops in certain western 

 states. For convenience, let us call them A and B. A 

 was to collect information on potatoes, B on alfalfa, and 

 the outlines they had to fill in, or complete, meant a care- 



