UIHistories Project: A History of the University of Illinois by Kalev Leetaru
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Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1876 [PAGE 210]

Caption: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1876
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210 It is true many successful farmers know nothing of science but rely upon traditional knowledge, yet that knowledge is science, as is shown by its success. It matters little how a truth is learned if we know it to be truth—there is, however, this difference: science tells you a truth and tells you why—tradition never assigns a reason, or if it does, a very uncertain one. Superstition and absurdity are more or less mingled with all traditional knowledge. And I may as well here as elsewhere refer to a disturbing element that has even stood in the way of agricultural improvement and has prevented the formation of a reliable science, and entails immense losses upon the world. The dark cloud of ignorance, which through the long ages of the past has rested like a pall on the tillers of the soil,, has not all been dissipated by the light of modern intelligence. Absurd theories of supernatural stellar or luna influences still usurp the place of true knowledge, and prevent the discovery and reception of truth. I will name a few of those which for the honor of our common humanity I could wish did not exist. I knew a man of full average intelligence who invariably caused his seed corn to be passed through a knot hole in a board to prevent the grubs from eating his growing corn. I have known him to keep his hands idle for hours on a pleasant working day while his son was putting the seed corn through that important process. I was once planting my potatoes at the first opportunity after the ground was in fit condition in the spring, (which in our dry climate is the best time) when a neighbor remonstrated and said my crop would be a failure; he should not plant his for three weeks, as that would be the proper time in the moon's age. He did so, and in the fall bought his potatoes of me, as I had a good crop and he had none. The succeeding season he did the same with the like result, and yet he persistently insisted that his rule was the best. In conversation with a neighbor, and viewing the new moon, he says the horns point upward, they will hold water, it will be a very wet moon. I said, do you believe it ? He replied, yes, I have observed it for forty years and never knew it to fail. The next evening in conversation with another neighbor, he said the horns point upward,they will hold all the water, it will be a very dry moon, that he had observed it for forty years and never knew it to fail. Here were two honest, truthful men who permitted an absurd superstition to have more influence than the evidence of their own senses. Both believed their respective theories, and I have no doubt one was just as true as the other. It is said pork butchered in the new of the moon will smell when cooking, but butchered in the old of the moon will shrink. Fruit trees will be as many years coming to bearing as the moon is days old when they are set. Manure spread on meadows in the new of the moon or when the horns point upward, will rise with the growing grass and be on top at mowing time, but spread when the moon's horns point down it will remain close to the ground. Such notions are not confined to the ignorant. I heard one of the wealthiest farmers in Illinois, and one who occupies a high social position, say that corn planted in the new of the moon would have few ears but large stalks, but planted in the