"Lots of things about farming, young man, that we hate to do. And you'll find it out as you get older."
"I don't doubt it. I'm learning things—both good and bad—every day. Don't you test your corn, Mr. Brown?"
"What d'you mean? In the silly little boxes they tell about at the agriculturoolarulal college?" chuckled the old hard-shell farmer. "Not any! And I raise the very best corn in this section."
"Don't you believe in scientific farming?"
"Science is all right for city folks that need it when they come out on to the land and mess around, raising crops," declared the old man in good natured disgust. "But experience counts for more than book-learning, and don't you forget it."
"But just think what you might do, Mr. Brown, with all your experience and just a little science."
"Rats!" chuckled the old man.
"That is much to the point," Hiram said gravely. "'Rats.' A little science properly applied would free your cribs of rats. I am going to send you a Government pamphlet on that matter."
"I usually roll them into pipe-spills, young man," replied Brown. "I ain't never cultivated a taste for fiction."
But from the looks of the farms, the outbuildings, and the well rolled fields and machine sheds he passed in driving through the country, Hiram did not believe that there were many farmers in the vicinity as stubborn as Mr. Brown. However, he had obtained two baskets of Mr. Brown's seed corn, paying two dollars for it, and he was sure he had the foundation for a good crop.