When Geeza documented the best way to grow wheat, there were no tractors at that time. Geeza advised his farmhands to work the soil by hand, by using hand tools and maybe oxen. He said that he would provide the seed and that it would be good seed, and that it would grow into a good crop provided the soil was tilled and prepared. The farmhands actually planted the seed into the soil. And he was right!
As time passed and the farmhands were replaced by new farmhands, they worked out that so long as the seed was the seed that Geeza recommended, and the soil was tilled and the seed planted, it did not matter what method of tilling the soil or method of planting was used. So they started using horses to plough and prepare the soil, and the planting operation became more mechanised.
As many more generations of farmhands came and went, the techniques of tilling and planting became even more efficient and tractors were used and eventually computer and satellite technology was used, but the farmhands knew that none of this mattered so long as they continued to used the seed that Geeza had recommended, and if they did this, a bountiful crop would be the result.
Now at some point along this process of using the same seed but with different planting methods, along came Bill Firvine who said NO NO! This is all wrong; we must go back to the old planting methods that Geeza used. We must use only hand tools and maybe oxen, and all this new way of planting is wrong. The wheat produced on those farms will be hollow, it will not sustain you; you will not be filled. Only wheat produced by using hand tools will have the nourishment required to sustain life. And a few farmhands believed him and went back to the old method of using only hand tools.
And so, Bill Firvine became known as the founder of the movement that believed the planting method was more important than the seed itself. Most of the more mechanised farmhands still recognised that the wheat produced on Bill Firvine’s farm was of good quality; they were just saddened that his farmhands did not seem to realise that it was the seed that produced the quality—not the method of planting it.
Revised June 12, 2011