If you're a city person...
Illustration
If you're a city person, raised to know how to get around by bus or freeway, but knowing nothing of farm life, it can be embarrassing to get to know rural life. The trick is to simply admit your ignorance and ask lots of questions, before you make disastrous mistakes.
Take plowing, for example. It certainly looks easy: just drive the tractor from one end of the field to the other, until it's marked with nice, even rows across its breadth. But it's trickier than it looks, until you know how to "sight" a row.
The trick is to focus not on just one landmark, but two. If you focus on a single landmark, the rows will wobble, because even though you think you're aiming right at that tree or fencepost, you haven't established a line, just a point. So, you learn to sight along that fencepost and some other point -- say, a tree just beyond the fence line. And don't take your eyes off it for long, not if you want a nice straight row.
-- Herrmann
Take plowing, for example. It certainly looks easy: just drive the tractor from one end of the field to the other, until it's marked with nice, even rows across its breadth. But it's trickier than it looks, until you know how to "sight" a row.
The trick is to focus not on just one landmark, but two. If you focus on a single landmark, the rows will wobble, because even though you think you're aiming right at that tree or fencepost, you haven't established a line, just a point. So, you learn to sight along that fencepost and some other point -- say, a tree just beyond the fence line. And don't take your eyes off it for long, not if you want a nice straight row.
-- Herrmann
