Show 26 Student Life ness of these scientific institutions yet it is extremely doubtful that any ether institutions anywhere furnish so much practical information and bring about so many benefits at so little expense to the public The scientific worker has learned that it is only the ignorant that attempts to belittle his work and that his sincere desire to render public service is appreciated by thinking men Twenty years ago the two Dakotas contained about twenty million acres of land that was apparently without value Hundreds of unsuccessful attempts had been made to grow wheat on this land It seemed that the land was to remain absolutelv useless It was easily cultivated and appeared to be good wheat land but the growing seasons were so short and hot that no variety of grain known in America could mature there The Department of Agriculture began to investigate A graduate of the Kansas Agricultural College was sent to Dakota where he made a close and exhaustive study of the conditions Then he was sent to Russia where he remained two years looking for conditions of soil and climate parallel to those in Dakota and collecting a large number of wheat varieties adapted to those conditions After working i fer two years in Russia he was satisfied that he had some wheats suited to the Dakota lands and he returned and commenced his long task cf introducing and distributing the seed where he thought it could be grown profitably The wheats he brought were the He encountered all kinds of opposition and even abuse The farmers disliked to mow the wheat because it was strongly bearded and as a result inconvenient to harvest and because the millers did not want to buy it The grain journals and farm papers all over the country ridiculed the department man but he persisted in his work and so far succeeded that the erstwhile useless land in western North Dakota and South Dakota has become one cf the greatest Durum wheat belts in the world In 1907 the area produced seventy million bushels of Durum wheat Du-ru- which sold for forty-fiv- e ms million Less than twenty-fiv- e dollars thousand dollars was spent in its introduction and distribution in this country The opposition of the Dakota farmers needless to say has disappeared and the same is true regarding the millers and grain buyers as is shown by the fact that they paid out forty-fiv- e million dollars for Durum wheat in 1907 In some respects this large |