Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1875 — A Boy’s Experiment. [ARTICLE]

A Boy’s Experiment.

Mr. M. Conrad Welbon tells the following story of his early efforts at fiu» experiments: “ When I was a little boy, on my father’s farm, I once made a little experiment on my own account, and carried it through secretly, for the purpose of enjoying the sunwise it might create. With this view, as soon as father got through planting his com, I selected and marked off, unknown to him, a small space near the center of the field. To each stalk of corn planted on this space J gave special attention, for the purpose of finding out how much each grain planted could be made to produce by giving it extra manure and extra hoeing. When the corn was gathered the difference between my pet stalks and the rest of the field attracted my father’s attention, and I remember bow puzzled he was in trying to account for it. When, at length, I: disclosed the secret, he instantly inquired how much extra work and manure I had applied. ‘ Tell tpe this exactly,* said be, ‘and I can tell the value of the experiment.’ I told him I had simply doubled what he had given to the rest of the field. After examining the result and comparing it with foe rest of the field he found that his yield was at the rate of forty-four bushels to the acre and mine althe rate of sixty-nine bushels. ‘Now*’ said he, ‘if extra culture and extra manure are good for single stalks, they must be good for the whole crop.’ So the next year he adopted myplan for the whole crop, and found that toe gain was even by seven bushels, than in my experiment.”