In all fairness it must be said, the modern gospel of progressiveness has not been everywhere accepted, far from it. Plenty of farmers, doubtless the majority, are still following the old traditions. Country folks as a rule are conservative. They like the old ways and are suspicious of "new-fangled notions." Director Bailey of Cornell enjoys telling the comment he overheard one day from a farmer of this sort. It was after he had been speaking at a rural life conference, doubtless proposing various plans for better farming, which differed from the honored superstitions of the neighborhood. A stolid native was overheard saying to his neighbor, "John, let them blow! They can't hurt me none." He prided himself on being immune to all appeals at such a rural life revival. Such a man is very common among the hills, and wherever the soil is poor; but he is beginning to feel lonesome in really prosperous rural communities, for the new agriculture is fast winning its way. That is, the application of science to agriculture has proved its efficiency by actual tangible results. A farmer may be so superstitious as to begin nothing on a Friday, nor butcher during a waning moon for fear his meat will shrink, nor use an iron plow for fear it may poison the soil! But when his neighbor by modern methods adds 50% to his crop, he knows there must be something in it. The new _theory_ he always greets with "I don't believe it!" but the knock-down argument of facts compels his reluctant faith. Soon he gives the new heresy a trial himself; and success makes him a convert to the new gospel. An experience like this is a serious thing for a hide-bound conservative, long wedded to old methods. It means that "the former things are passed away and behold all things are become new." He loses his superstitions as he discovers the laws of cause and effect. He gradually concludes that farming is not a matter of luck but largely a matter of science; that it is not merely tickling Dame Nature till she grudgingly shares her bounties, but that it is a scientific process, the laws of which may be discovered. This means mental growth for the farmer, the stimulus of many new ideas which bring wider horizons and a larger life; and incidentally a heightened respect for his own life-work. _What is Progressive Agriculture?_