Evening star., 1914-04-12

COnQ1t1Oflal CTeQ1t OF having QOne the pioneer
agricultural work in the South.
1t was at the North Carolina college that
Burkett out -Burketted Burkett. The pc
culiar ambition OF some experimenters may
be to tinker up blue rose, grow pickles on
a cucumber tree, or take the cuss out of
cactus; but Burkett succeeded in breeding
a type of corn that produced SIX Count EN-:
sikh good big ears to the stalk-and there
is more nutriment in that than in blue rose,
or tree-grown pickle.
To tell in detail the story of how Burkett
accomplished this real wonder, from the
initial selection of the individual parent
stalk to the final fixing of the type, which
took four years of time, would require a
book. And Burkett was far too busy doing
things then, and since, to write the book that
only he could write. The story of how he
made six ears of corn grow on single stalk
the inception of the experiment, the special
fertilization, cultivation, pollenization, Sc
lection, and the rest-has never been writ
ten. Burkett purposes doing this at his
first opportunity. Until then the descriptive
detail must remain his story. The Southern
farmer has the concrete result of Burkett's
work in greatly increased crop yield; and
that's more interesting to him than any
story.
When reports of Burkett's achievement
were carried by visitors to other sections,
farmers from various Northern States made
pilgrimages to the agricultural station at
Raleigh to see with their own eyes and to
secure small quantities Of the seed of this
new-bred multiple-prolific corn to promul-
gate and perpetuate the wonder in their sew
eral communities. And right then the first
fly in the honey was discovered. 1t failed
to perform in the North! Hundreds have
attempted to acclimate and establish the
type in different sections of the great corn
belt; but variation was invariably induced
and the type reverted to its original single
ear-to-the-stalk capacity. In the South,
however, farmers now using this corn are
able to grow three and four bushels where,
even under the best culture, they formerly
could grow but one, and-they should worry
about the Northern grower!
1.-THE average corn yield in North Carolina
on Burkett's advent was seventeen bush
els an acre. At the end of the four years of
his corn experimentation they were growing
over one hundred bushels an acre in the
fields at the State experiment station. To
day they are getting bigger corn yields in
North Carolina than in Kansas.
Burkett also revolutionized the practice
of cotton culture in North Carolina, and as
a result the average yield for the State
was raised from a little over one to two
and even three bales an acre. And he
taught them the value of the COW pea as
a nitrogen gatherer and soil enricher, and
the prime importance OF scientific cultiva-
ton as means OF releasing latent soil fer
tility.
He couldn't take the station to the four
corners of the State; but he did bring in rep
resentative farmers from every section dur
ing the growing season, and talked to them
like a big brother,-took them right out
into the fields where the crops were growing,
lgot up on barrel head in the center of his
interested audience, and talked to them
about the things then growing about their
feet, then shouldered his barrel, hiked to the
center of another field, and told them the
why and the wherefore of what they saw
there, told them how they could and should
go home and get the same splendid results.
Thus he scattered the good work of the
station over all the State. Aycock had
found man who, like himself, was not
chair warmer.
"Burkett, it is not enough that you have
done these things, said the Governor: "we
must teach all Of our farmers also how to do
them. To accomplish that end must
teach the children, and we can do that only
by teaching them in their own colleges, the
little country schoolhouses. l want you to
write plain, simple treatise on practical
agriculture that can be t1Sed as textbook