The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1878-01-03
Clover and Clover Seed.

For the great majority of American
farmers the clover plant affords the
cheapest and best means for renovating
exhausted land. 1t is not now necessary
to inquire whether clover actually in.
creases fertility or only makes it more
easily available for present crops. Years
hence this will be an interesting ques.
ton, but for long time to come all that
farmers need ask is how to make the
soil produce maximum crops of grain
and grass. Whoever does this need not
fear that the large crops will not sell fol
enough to supply the waste of fertility
which they cause. When this time
comes, as it never will, no skill in farm.
ing can make the business profitable
In other words, the men who supply the
world with bread will only partly earn
their own, and must make up the de.
fciency by exhausting their capital.
The bare statement of such a position
carries with it the best refutation of it
fallacy. Looking at the condition of
farming through period of twenty-five
years, find that wherever good farming
has been practiced there has been de,
cided increase in fertility, that larger
crops are grown than ten or twenty
years ago, and that good farmers are
yearly becoming less and less dependent
on the season for profitable results. Most
of this improvement is due to the Use of
closer; other influences have helped, but
without clover all the manuring and
understanding that have been expended
on land would only suffice to maintain
fertility, without perceptible improve
ment.
The best modes of utilizing clover be-
comes, therefore, the central question in
agricultural improvement. Whether it
shall be ploughed under, pastured, or
mown; whether it shall be sown alone,
or with some small grain crop-these are
questions affecting virtually the pros
perity of the farming population. The
farmers of western New York, having
long been foremost in wheat production.
easily learned to Use clover us its best
auxiliary. With the progress of years
they have learned experimentally the
best modes of using clover Forty years
ago ploughing under clover when in full
blossom was the standard method. Wheat
then was the staple crop, and almost the
only one which sold for money. A few
cows to supply the family with milk and
butter; hogs enough to fill thetpork bar
rel and pay the taxes, and horses to work
the farm, were almost the only stock
kept on some of the largest and most sue
cessful wheat farms. The manure to
make the wheat crop was furnished al
most exclusively by the clover ploughed
under the previous season. Since the in
PRODUCTION of mixed husbandry this sys-
tenn has been greatly changed. More
stock is kept; more reliance is placed on
manure; artificial fertilizers are more
largely used each year. and there is COM
paratively little summer following and
ploughing under the clover.
Then can be no doubt that this system
of mixed farming is more profitable, not
only in the money value of crops sold,
but vastly more so in the increase of fer
tility of the soil. There is greater GER
tsinty, also, for the farmer. He does not
have all his eggs in one basket, and bad
season does not leave him with receipts
running far behind his inevitable ex-
penses. The weather that is bad for one
crop is favorable for others, and be has
always reasonable certainty of having
something to sell. OF late years shrewd
farmers have learned to carry the svs-
TEN of mixed husbandry a step further
and add clover seed to their list
of available crops. Eight or ten to fifty
or seventy-fve bushels of clover seed, as
grown on many farms every year, are a