Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1911-08-17


! Through the Meshes." 1t applies as
much to intelligence in farming as to
Intelligence In any other line Of bust
ness:
When was boy down in central
Indiana used to visit the farm of Hi
ram Gulley, a young man in those
days, yet the most prosperous farmer
"A his neighborhood.
When blowing time came in the
spring, Gulley started in early and
kept it up to finish. AS result,
he was the first to SOW and the first
to harvest, and by this means he got
his pick of the best farm labor in the
district.
Somhow he had fuller crops in both
lean and fat years than any in his dis
trict, and his neighbors consoled
themselves with the theory of tenn
porary luck.
AS Hiram's prosperity grew the
luck theory grew, and as Dagger Gill,
one of the old loafers in country
shoe shop put it: EFF Hi Gulley fell
in Owl creek he would come out all
kivered with gold"
Farming seemed to be a pleasure
with him, while with his neighbors it
was in the nature of forced occupa-
ton. None of them ever seemed to
acquire anything except by the prac-
tice of ignorant. shrewd trading with
one another, but rarely by any actual
productive farming. Much OF the Sc
cret of Hiram Gulley's so-called luck
was the fact that he had room in
his house filled with books, circulars.
pamphlets and reports, all on agricul-
ture, good student lamp on the CEN
ter table and barrel of oil in his cell
lar, and he read far into the night.
Hiram Gulley knew all about Lu-
Their Burbank and his theory of plant
life, while his neighbors only knew
of the Burbank potato in the sense of
a Ben Davis applet was just
|
name, rather than a personality. The
first clear explanation of this bur.
bank theory of plant life that l heard
was given me by Hiram Gulley more
than Is years ago,-it has since been
the subject of many highbrowed ma
gaZine articles.
To illustrate it he went out into the
garden where the tomatoes were just
beginning to ripen. There is sex
relation in plant life, that is, through
the polen," he explained. eve will
suppose now that we want to produce
a variety of early tomatoes We
would go along this row of ordinary
tomatoes and select the particular
plant that had the nearest approach
to the thing we wanted to accomplish
which in this case would be the plant
that had the ripest tomatoes-the
ones that were red when the others
were green. We would then separate
this plant by planting it 500 or 1000
feet away from all other tomato
plants. where it could not be contami-
mated by the pollen of later maturing
ones. The seeds from this plant would
be taken and again planted free from
contamination. From this seed the
plants showing the earliest maturity
would again be selected and trar-.
planted and so on until the desired
result would be accomplished, which
might take two years Or ten years,
but the result would certainly follow
patience"
He went on to show how nature
soon assists in bringing a desired re.
suit, leading the way to an early va
riety Of tomatoes by the fact that the
foliage soon becomes lighter in order
to admit the sunlight, while it is hea-
vier on the late varieties to exclude
the sunlight. He further explained
that the same principle of selection
and isolation would hold good in any
plant life,-in producing a variety of
leas, beans, corn or wheat.
He illustrated the relationship of
plant life by the fact that if pump
kins and watermelons were planted
in the same patch the latter would
take on the taste and character of the
former; that the cabbage and lettuce
and even the cauliflower were cousins
to one another that the relationship
of the plants, that is, those of near
kin, could be told by the similarity in
seed; that lettuce seed was worth
about 20 cents per ounce and cauli-
flower seed was worth $3.50 an ounce,
both of which were alike in appear
ance.
He finally explained, in the case of
the Begonia, where the male and fe-
male were on different stocks, that in
Germany where wide varieties of this