Old Mr. Henderson came by again, this time without pretending he needed a tool. He brought a yellowed photocopy from an agricultural pamphlet he had found in a box of old papers. The pages described stone mulch in dry regions, with photographs of ground covered by carefully spaced fragments and explanations of reduced surface evaporation. Some of the details differed from Eli's design, but the principle was familiar enough that the boy felt a sudden kinship with farmers he would never meet.
Henderson handed over the pages and said the author had probably never heard of Millbrook Hollow. Eli thanked him and asked whether the method would work on corn as well as beans. The older man said that was a question for the field, not for an article, and suggested they contact the county agricultural extension office before committing more land. Thomas agreed immediately, to Eli's surprise.
Ruth found the number in an old directory and left a message on a Monday morning. The extension office called back two days later, and a soil specialist named Clara Bell agreed to visit when her schedule allowed. Eli spent the following evening cleaning the notes in his notebook without changing the original entries, copying measurements onto fresh paper so someone unfamiliar with the experiment could follow them. He was nervous about having a professional look at the work; it had felt manageable to be dismissed by neighbors, but he feared being told by someone trained that the entire idea was flawed.
Clara Bell arrived in a dusty county vehicle with a canvas field bag and a clipboard balanced on the passenger seat. She was in her early forties, wearing work trousers and a pressed shirt whose sleeves she rolled above her elbows before stepping into the field. Thomas met her at the gate, introduced Ruth and Nana Vera, and pointed toward the pear tree where Eli was waiting beside the strip. Bell looked first at the ground, then at the boy, and asked him to tell her what he had actually observed rather than what he hoped to prove.
Eli liked the question. He described the first arrangement, the runoff damage, the exposed gaps, the hailstorm, and the changes he had made afterward. Bell listened with an expression neither doubtful nor overly encouraging, interrupting only to ask about the rain gauge, the plants used for comparison, and the source of the stones. When he finished, she crouched to examine the soil and requested permission to take small samples from the protected and unprotected areas.
"You have an interesting response here," she said after feeling both samples. "But we need to be careful about why the difference exists. The stones are one factor, your added organic matter is another, and the site itself has some shade and runoff patterns that the neighboring rows don't share." Eli nodded quickly, afraid that she was preparing to tell them the experiment proved nothing.