The Press., 1918-01-03

said I reckoned Jlfn would have hard
 time talxinr care of a wife, especially if
 he was goin' to do things his own way
 and never take any advice from any
 body.
 'SWell, when had got so low finan
 cially that I had to put mortgage On
 my farm Jim come home He said he'd been to an agricultural college and had come home to help me out.
 "'Father,' he said, you and all the
 rest of the old fashioned farmers have
 been blundering along for ages. The
 earth and everything in it is a big
 laboratory, and there's nothing that
 isn't subject to the laws of science. Dc you remember when you told me to trim the apple tree and cut of the lower branches? We'll, 1t occurred to me that that tree was a mighty big climb for the sap; that by the time it got to the top 1t must be tired out, and that what apples 1t produced would be small and few. Besides, 1t would cost more to gather apples grown as high as that than they'd be worth when you got 'em down.
 "sAnd do you remember the ground put the chemicals in? We'll, that was a failure. but when boy of fourteen begins experimenting he's not likely to succeed without lot of failures. Some times a grown educated scientist will work for years over problem and fail in the end.
 "'When you tired of me and grand mother left me the legacy determined to use 1t to learn what there was known about scientific agriculture. don't claim to have learned any more than is known by others, but I've learn ed that and it's good foundation on which to learn more I'm not going to do much experimenting on my own hook till I have put you on a better basis in your efforts to make money out of the farm.
 "'And I must tell you further that there's business in farming as well as anything else. My vacations I've spent clerking in a produce store in q big city. There I've learned certain of some middlemen's methods. I've seen some thing of how he squeezes the consum- CT on the one hand and the farmer on the other. I don't want to squeeze either myself, but the more a man knows about squeezing the less likely he is to get squeezed.
 "'Now, dad, I'll tell you what We must do. We must take advantage of our opportunities such as they are and turn away from what are not Op- pOrtunities, no matter how attractive they look. We've got a market handy for such produce as is used on the ta- bles of any and every body. We'll go into table vegetables on a small scale at first, and if we find 1t pays we'll increase the scale. AS soon as We can work it we'll open a store for the sale of our own produce and make the whole profit ourselves. But we cani go too fast; must feel our way and shift our plans as we run up against stone walls.'"
 The farmer paused in his narrative, cast a glance over his broad beds of garden truck and concluded:
 There's the result of Jim's work. He didn't do any experimentin' till he'd got the business well goin'. call it the business because business is a part and a very important part of farmin'
 i've said that Jim didn't do any ex. peFimentin', so he didn't in the regular line of the work on the farm, but he's been doin' 1t all the while in small way, and he's found out some things already.
 That mortgage told you of was paid off in two years, and now there's plenty over for all.
 "Jim married his sweetheart and they live in the cottage down wonder. This little Jim"-putting his hand on the boys head-''is chip off the old block: he has a will of his own, anyway. There's his dad now"
 A sturdy young man of twenty-five or six in overalls came up to us and was introduced by his father. had some talk with him about his profes- sion, but found him very reticent and could get only little out of him. Evi- dently he was a man of deeds instead of words.
 was so pleased with this bit of life's success that motored that way again and met Jim's mother and his wife. There was an air of prosperity and comfort about all these people and their farm that was very attractive to me, and in time came to know them all we'll. During these visits Jim re ceived a. high appointment in the Unit ed States department of agriculture. <. If there Is any moral to this story it seems to me it is that a genius is so far out of the beaten track that he is apt to be considered a dunce. In other words, his brain is so absorbed with the generally unknown that 1t is i'm. possible to fix 1t on the known.