A MILLION DOLLARS FOR BIGGER CORN CROPS
A Million Dollars For Bigger Corn Crops The Harvester Trust Considers It "Good Business" to Aid the Farmer THE HARVESTER TRUST has just handed Professor Perry Greely Holden one million dollars...
...Holden's work so his activities will cover not only Iowa but the entire corn belt...
...There are approximately 100,000,000 acres given over to the raising of corn in this country...
...Who is he...
...That will result in more acres planted and therefore the sale of more plows and harrows and cultivators, and corn cutters and shredders and shellers...
...He is a Burbank of the com field...
...Giving Holden to the Nation" THE HARVESTER TRUST explains its purposes in engaging Holden to develop greater returns from the Corn Belt in a statement which follows, in part: "During the last ten years Professor Holden, through his work in organizing demonstration corn trains, short courses, and the like, has revolutionized corn growing in Iowa...
...What he has done for Iowa ought to be done for every state in the union...
...Result: Iowa produces 27,000,000 bushels of corn more each year now than she did ten years ago...
...By examples, he showed the growers good and bad seeds and how to get good seeds right at home without paying exorbitant prices to seed companies...
...It is the purpose of the harvester company to broaden the scope of Prof...
...High grade seed is distributed free of charge or at a nominal cost...
...And what has he been doing...
...We believe that as part of the community we owe it something in the way of educating it in the direction of greater productiveness...
...An effort is also under way to show the boll weevil states how to make the corn crop as profitable as the cotton crop...
...He and assistants and a trunk of "examples" got in and, being well-advertised, they were met at each station by a large crowd of corn growers who got in the "audience car" and were treated to Professer Holden's discovery...
...Clarence Funk, general manager of The International Harvester Company, says: "We expect this work to be of great aid to the farmers under Professor Holden's direction...
...Then he explained the gospel of good seed, seed that will grow and wax into big, fattening ears of corn, which, in turn, can be transformed, with the kind assistance of hungry steers and hogs, into juicy beefsteak and delicious hams...
...Then Mr...
...Gentlemen," he began, "you might as well sow pebbles as some of the seed you put in the ground...
...A Million Dollars For Bigger Corn Crops The Harvester Trust Considers It "Good Business" to Aid the Farmer THE HARVESTER TRUST has just handed Professor Perry Greely Holden one million dollars which the trust has pried loose from the farmers, and, with a great show of public spiritedness, has announced is for the benefit of the farmers...
...Senator Cummins has made a statement that his work in Iowa alone has been worth over $30,000,000 to that state...
...The employment of Professor Holden is the climax of the active co-operation which the International Harvester company service bureau has been carrying on for several years with agricultural colleges and government experiment stations...
...He is one of the most remarkable men in the west...
...That made even the most skeptical grower sit up and take notice...
...He rigged up the first "corn-gospel train" ever run along railroad tracks...
...For four years he taught farming at the University of Illinois, and then went to Ames, where they call him the "Luther Burbank of the cornfield...
...By more intensive cultivation it is believed this average yield can be increased several bushels an acre...
...This isn't exactly philanthropy, because we expect to sell more agricultural implements as a result, but we are not looking immediately for profits...
...Two more such demon tration headquarters have been started in the Dakotas, and plans are under consideration to cover in a similar way the central and eastern states...
...Holden discovered something—something that has done more for the dinner table's customers than a dozen frozen Arctic poles could do...
...It is estimated he has increased the yield of the entire state over three bushels an acre...
...Educational stereopticon slides and moving picture films are kept in constant circulation and several paid lecturers are in the employ of the company...
...We are giving Professor Holden to the nation...
...Those farms are used as starting points for the state wide agitation toward more intelligent and profitable farming...
...In the southern states the company has established three demonstration farms, under the direction of experts...
...Holden has been doing for the corn growers of Iowa what Professor Moore of the University of Wisconsin has been doing to make "two blades grow where only one grew before...
...The idea is for Professor Holden to educate the farmers into growing bigger crops of corn...
...The fact is, of course, that the Harvester Trust is spending that million in order that it may get back more millions from the farmer...
...Professor Holden has been teaching most of his mature years, starting in Michigan in 1889...
...And he started out to tell about it— not to the magazine editor, as your professional discoverer does —but to the farmers...
...Showing the Farmers the Way to Big Crops BUT Professor Holden has the million to spend...
...Eight years ago he attached himself to the Iowa agricultural school at Ames, as professor of agronomy...
Vol. 4 • November 1912 • No. 48
