The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1922-03-24
so SEED
AND GETS 5000. 90
New Clover Plant Grows Froa
To 10 Feet High and is Very
Valuable.

N%ewberry, Ala, Feb. 23.-Profes,
sor H. D. Hughes of the Iowa Agri-
cultural College at Ames, Ia, here on
leave of absence, is a promising rival
of Luther Burbank in developing
plant life, and of Henry Ford and
Muscle Shoals in producing cheap
fertilizer.
Professor Hughes is the discoverer
of "hubam" a remarkable new clover,
which attains a growth of five to ten
feet in the first year..
In explaining the significance Of
what he has done Hughes made this
statement:
"Soil demands nitrogen and or
ganic matter as a fertilizer in order
to get the best results.
nitrogen must be obtained from
the air either by a chemical process
such as is proposed at Muscle Shoals
or by blowing under certain kinds Of
plants in which the nitrogen has been
fixed by bacteria.
"Clover is the soil remover, be.
cause it contains the nitrogen and the
organic elements.
"The usual practice is to plant
clover with wheat and after the wheat
has been harvested the clover is
plowed under with the wheat stubble
Nature has so adjusted the rate of
growth that when the wheat is cut
the clover is only a few inches high.
But afterwards it shoots up rapidly.
"Here is where hubam is especi-
ally valuable. 1t grows to a height OF
, six, eight and ten feet in one season,
and when the farmer plows it under,
he puts back in his soil a fertilizer
of the very highest value and in
great abundance. He gets both guam
tity and quality"
Hughes discovered this new clover
while he was testing seeds from vari-
Gus sections in his greenhouse at
Ames. As soon as farmers and seed
men learned about it, Hughes was
deluged with special offers. One
man mailed a check for $40, begging
for six seeds, while another sent a
check signed in blank and urged
Hughes to fill in his own price.
The value of this discovery is
shown from the fact that one man
'eported he sold a crop of clover for
$4,000 which had been developed
from so seeds.
In mailing samples to experiment
station Hughes sent along a letter
estimating the value of the new Glow
er at 100000 a bushel.
Big stacks of letters have been re-
ceived from seedmen, farmers and
experiment stations all over the
ni.ed States, telling Of wonderful
results obtained from the new annual
sweet clover.
After a lengthy investigation
Hughes discovered that the new clov-
er came from Alabama and he traced
it to a locality nea Newbern, where
t was growing wild.
How do you account for hubam?"
Hughes was asked. "Is it an evolu.
ton from the biennial variety, or is
it "a hybrid?"
Neither" he replied. at is a
rnutation-a change wrought by ma
ture which practically amounts to a
new creation. Just how it is done we
do not understand, but those Of US
who are constantly experimenting
with plant life know that such things
do happen.
New varieties of wheat, corr and
other grains come into existence in
that way. Of course we all know that
new plants can be created by a breed
ing or grating process, but this is
something different.
1T is a jump in the creative pro-
cess in which successive stages of
evolution are passed over, and we see
only the result in the form Of a new
and superior plant"