They
took their coats off and applied college methods. They
ran out, first, a base line AB, and measured off from it
lateral spurs MN, OP, QR, and so on. From these they took
side angles with a theodolite so as to get the edges of
each of the separate plots of their land absolutely
correct. I saw them working at it all through one Saturday
afternoon in May. They talked as they did it of the
peculiar ignorance of the so-called practical farmer. He
never--so they agreed--uses his head. He never--I think
I have their phrase correct--stops to think. In laying
out his ground for use, it never occurs to him to try to
get the maximum result from a given space. If a farmer
would only realize that the contents of a circle represent
the maximum of space enclosable in a given perimeter,
and that a circle is merely a function of its own radius,
what a lot of time he would save.
These young men that I speak of laid out their field
engineer-fashion with little white posts at even distances.
They made a blueprint of the whole thing as they planted
it. Every corner of it was charted out. The yield was
calculated to a nicety. They had allowed for the fact
that some of the stuff might fail to grow by introducing
what they called "a coefficient of error.
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