ys of exact
information rather than upon the quaking bog of guesswork. Partly because
of this, they have built up a multitude of institutions, each of them far
larger than the largest of the olden days and have made fortunes which
make the big accumulations of other days seem like mere pocket money. In
making these fortunes for themselves, they have enabled millions not only
to enjoy far larger incomes than people of their class and situation ever
received before, but to enjoy conveniences and luxuries beyond even the
dreams of the rich men and kings of olden days.

RANDOM METHODS YIELD TO SCIENTIFIC

In the old-time factories the various departments of work, machinery and
equipment in each of the departments were arranged almost at random. Even
a few years ago we sometimes saw factories in which the materials worked
upon were moved upstairs, then downstairs, then back upstairs, hither and
yon, until a diagram of their wanderings looked like a tangle of yarn.
Even in offices, desks were placed at random and letters, orders,
memoranda, and other documents and papers were moved about with all of the
orderliness and method of a school-girl playing "pussy wants a corner."
Modern scientific management, horrified at the waste of time and energy,
makes accurate knowledge take the place of this random, helter-skelter,
hit-or-miss basis of action and multiplies profits.

If the old-time farmer rotated his crops at all, he did it at random. He
was, therefore, a little more likely than not, perhaps, to put a crop into
a field which had been exhausted of the very elements that crop most
needed. By this method and by other superstitious, guesswork, traditional,
random, and neglectful methods, he struggled along on an average of about
twenty bushels of corn to the acre, proudly defying anybody to teach him
anything about farming out of books, or any white-collared dude from an
agricultural college to show him anything about raising corn. Hadn't he
been raising corn for nigh on forty years? How could there, then, be
anything more for him to learn about its production?

But a little twelve-year-old boy down in what had always been supposed to
be the poor corn lands of Alabama, by the painstaking application of a
little simple knowledge, produced 232 and a fraction bushels of corn on
one acre of land. Other boys in all parts of the South and of the corn
belt began producing from 100 to 200 bushels of corn to the acre in the
same way.