The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1904-03-25
CONTINUED INTEREST IN INSTITUTE
Many People Listen to Addresses BY Conductors at
Mankato Theatre and A. o. u. w. Hall.

connection with my life. My father and
1 undertook the upbuilding of a worn out
farm. That farm had been fertile once.
Many years of cropping had robbed it of
its vergin fertility and it would not
pay for cultivation. The theory that
clover would restore soil was seized
upon by us and worked out to logical
conclusion. That farm fifteen years ago
yielded gross revenue of less than
$500. Today it yields profit of more
than $500. Clovers grown upon the
farm, the manure put back to help other
clovers to grow, has made the difference.
Clovers not only feed the soil but they
are the best feeds for animal life as well.
There was time when I was pessi-
mist as to our land. l had seen the
ruin that had come to Virginia, Mary
land and other old states through the
exhaustion of their soils. I had seen
the slow decay of my own country and
it seemed as though we were doomed to
slow soil exhaustion and decay. l do
not see things in that dismal light. Last
year [ went to France and made study
of her agriculture there. Near Paris
are the most fertile fields that | have
ever seen. They produce wheat, sugar
beets and grass. The wheat when was
Al 4a11 fho,, Tho nNan,c
backs. 1t stood so thick that a hat
thrown out in the standing grain would
scarce fall to the ground. Beets covered
the ground with their lusty green tops,
Grass was so heavy and thick that there
was hardly room on the ground for it to
dry. These fields, the most fertile [ had
ever seen, were old hundred years ago,
yes, thousand years ago they were old
fields, and no doubt if we could know,
they were already old four thousand
years ago! And today they bloom in
rich and radiant beauty.
What makes those fields fertile?
More than half of the ground or fields
is covered with clover of some sort or
another There is the crimson clover,
that we cannot grow here; there is es-
parcette or sainfoin, that also will not
grow well with us, but there is the ordi-
nary red clover and there is the alfalfa.
This feeds the cows, the sheep, and the
horses. The manure is carefully return
ed to the fields and the result is the
marvellous fruitfulness Of the soil.
How do clovers enrich soils? Once
men denied that they did enrich them at
all. The farmer said: 'Yet, [ do know
that my land is better for the clover
that grows thereon; but the chemist in
sisted that from nothing, nothing could
come; that in sowing clover seed itself.
Then the careful old scientist, the man
who gets down on his knees to the soil,
took hand in it. By pot cultures in
barren sand he learned that when clover
plants have incubation of certain form
of bacteria that inhabit rootlets they are
able to imbibe nitrogen from the great
source of free nitrogen, the air. That is
the way the Almighty enriches soils,
and man may be his partner. 1t is by
working alongside the Almighty, as his
partner, that we make achievements.
First we must understand his laws.
Then by doing our part we may come to.
success.
Continuing, Mr.. Wing said: Gentle
men this sounds like theory to you. 1t
is theory, which is the other name for
reason why. Without correct theory
you cannot base intelligent practice. Be-
lieving, then, this theory we on Wood
land farm have so acted that we have in
creased the fertility of that farm until
we cut last year more than 300 tons of
alfalfa hay, husked more than 1000
bushels of corn, made more than 400
bushels of barley. We have proved that
clovers feed soils. We have proved that
clovers feed animals with greatest profit
and at the least cost. We believe '"that
there shall be New Heaven and New
Earth, and that it will come from the
right use of the means that God has
freely put beside us, the humble clover
plant"
Mr.. Wings remarks were of thrilling
interest. He is a plain, practical man,
but very earnest and just the right kind
for the Farmers Institute work for |
or any other state.
At the A. o. U. w. hall, T. c. Raynor,
spoke on floods and Feeding" There
are three things which makes food val
liable, viz: Its digestibility, it's com
position and it's manurial value.
The digestibility of the fodder crops
we grow, is largely in the hands of the
farmer. Our cured folders are quite di-
gestible when cut and cured about the
stage, and all our hay crops
come under this head.
Mixed grain crops used for hay fodder,
should be cut when the grain is in the
milk stage. But the corn plant might
De considered an exception, in that its
feeding value is best when the corn has
cached the glaSed condition.
The composition of food determines
whether it is valuable from flesh form
ng point or heat and work producing
,nint There are five narts in q food |