Everyone knows that Ben Franklin was an inventor and a statesman. Not everyone knows that he was an innovative farmer.
When Franklin tried to persuade his neighbors one spring to spread plaster among their seeds to yield a better crop, the neighbors scoffed.
So, before planting one of his fields near a well-used road, Franklin used his fingers to trace some letters into the soil and lined the tracings with plaster, which probably contained the nutrient gypsum. He then sowed the entire field.
Once the seeds began to sprout, passersby could clearly read these words: “This has been plastered.”
--Adapted from "Leading by Example: Two Examples of What www.ezinearticles.com.Through Example Actually Means and Entails," Lynn Marie Sager,