t results
or to attain any fixed standard. This is necessarily so with an
operation which has so many uncertain factors to deal with as
agriculture. Humidity of the atmosphere and of the soil, the
available plant food in the soil, methods of tillage, fertilizers
used, recurrence of frosts, amount of sunlight, the altitude and
latitude of different localities, all have a bearing upon crop
production. It is, therefore, very difficult to fix any approximate
standard or average production for any particular locality without
basing it upon a long series of years. I think, however, that it is
a subject worthy of agitation, and it might inspire agriculturists
to better work were such an ideal fixed upon."

This indicates that each experiment station or progressive farmer or
teacher of agriculture might advantageously establish the local
"Bogie score" of what might fairly be expected.

We know how misleading averages are. The man who tried to wade
across a stream whose average depth was two feet, was drowned. "The
writer used to go to a fishing club of which Cornelius Vanderbilt
was a member. One of the standard jokes there was that the thirty
members are worth on an average over two million apiece, that is,
Cornelius sixty millions, and the rest of us (comparatively)
nothing. Which are you to be? A Vanderbilt among cultivators, or
the other fellow who makes the 'average'?" ("Money Making in Free
America," by the Author.)

But even making all allowances we see that we must cultivate much
better than the "average," to make anything more than the farmer's
hard living off the land. Peter Dunne tells us what kind of a grind
that is.

"This pa-aper says th' farmer niver sthrikes. He hasn't got th' time
to. He's too happy. A farmer is continted with his farm lot. There's
nawthin' to take his mind off his wurruk. He sleeps at night with
his nose against th' shingled roof iv his little frame home an'
dhreams iv cinch bugs. While th' stars are still alight he walks in
his sleep to wake th' cows that left th' call f'r four o'clock. Thin
it's ho! f'r feedin' th' pigs an' mendin' th' reaper. Th' sun arises
as usual in th' east, an' bein' a keen student iv nature he picks a
cabbage leaf to put in his hat. Breakfast follows, a gay meal
beginnin' at nine an' endin' at nine-three. Thin it's off f'r th'
fields where all day he sets on a bicycle seat an' reaps the bearded
grain an' th' Hessian fly, with nawthin' but his own thoughts an' a