r who was passing stopped and said: "See here, its none of
my business of course, but you're new here and I don't want to see you
fail. But if you plow your land deep like that you'll ruin it sure. I
know. I've been here."

After a time, however, the committee persuaded a few colored farmers
to try deep plowing on a small scale as an experiment. One of the
first of these was a poor man who had had the hardest kind of a
struggle scraping a scant existence out of the soil for himself and
his large family. He was desperate and agreed to try the new method.
He got results the first year, moved on to better land and followed
instructions. In a few years he bought 500 acres of land, gave each of
his four sons 100 acres, and kept 100 acres for himself. Since then
father and sons alike have been prosperous and contented and have
added to their holdings.

In short, these Negro farmers were no more eager to be reformed and
improved in their methods than are any normal people. There is a
shallow popular sentiment that unless people are eager for
enlightenment and gratefully receive what is offered them they should
be left unenlightened. Booker Washington never shared this sentiment.
His agent reported that in response to their appeals for the raising
of a better grade of cattle, hogs, and fowl the farmers replied that
the stock they had was good enough. One of their favorite comments
was, "When you eat an egg what difference does it make to you whether
that egg was laid by a full-blooded fowl or a mongrel?" Instead of
being discouraged or disgusted by this attitude on the part of the
people he merely regarded it as what was to be expected and set about
devising means to overcome it. As always he placed his chief reliance
upon the persuasive eloquence of the concrete. He decided to send
blooded stock and properly raised products around among the farmers so
that they might compare them with their inferior stock and products
and see the difference with their own eyes. This plan was later
carried out through the Jesup Wagon contributed by the late Morris K.
Jesup of New York. This wagon was a peripatetic farmers' school. It
took a concentrated essence of Tuskegees' agricultural department to
the farmers who could not or would not come to Tuskegee.

The wagon was drawn by a well-bred and well-fed mule. A good breed of
cow was tied behind. Several chickens of good breeds, well-developed
ears of corn, stalks of cotton, bundles of oats