Common Sense in Agriculture
A young man in the shoe business was burned out in the fire at San Francisco. He owned a few acres of table grapes near Sanger, in the San Joaquin Valley. He decided to turn farmer, and went down and cultivated his grapes. The soil was good, the season a fair average, his vines were healthy, his neighbor had big crops. He had nothing. What did he do? He took the next train to Berkeley, and went to the “Cow College,” as they call the agricultural department of the State University. He laid the case before the viticultural expert and got it diagnosed and prescribed for. The diagnosis was that the blossoms probably needed to be fertilized from the pollen of other vines by artificial means. The prescription was a dozen hives of bees to be distributed through the vineyard. The next season he had a bumper crop. This small incident is significant because it is typical. The Californian takes his problem to experts and follows advice when he gets it. He has no bucolic contempt for theorists.—World’s Work.