Year: 1878

cheapest and best means for renovating
exhausted land. It is not now necessary
to inquire whether clover actually in-
c-eases fertility or only makes it more
easily available for present crops. Years
hence this will be an interesting question,
but for a 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
the large crops will not sell for enough
to supply the waste of fertility which
they cause. When this time comes, as
it never will, no skill in farming 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 deficiency
by exhausting their capital. The bare
statement of such position carries with
it.. the best refutation of It's fallacy.
Looking at the condition of farming
through period of twenty five years, [
find that wherever good farming has
been practiced there has been decided
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. Nest of this improve
ment is due to the use of clover; other
influences have helped, but without
clover all the manuring and underdrain-
ing that have been expended on land
would only suffice to maintain fertility,
without perceptible improvement.


The best modes of utilizing clover
becomes, therefore, the central question
in agricultural improvement. Whether
it should be plowed under, pastured, or
mown whether it shall be sown alone,
or with some small grain crop-these are
questions affecting virtually the prosper
ity of the farming population. The
farmers of western New York, having
long been foremost in wheat production
easily learned 10 use clover as its best
auxiliary. With the progress of years
they have learned experimentally the
best modes of using clover. Forty years
ago plowing under clover when in full
blossom was the standard method. Wheat
then was the staple crop, and almost the
o1~ for A
COWS to supply the family with milk and
butter; hogs enough to fill the pork 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
successful wheat farms. The manure to
make the wheat crop was furnished
almost exclusively by the clover plowed
under the preyieass season. Since the
introduction of mixed husbandry this
system 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
comparatively little summer following
and plowing under the clover.


There can be no doubt that this sys-
tenn of mixed farming is more profitable,
not only in the money value of crops
sold, but vastly more so in the increase
of fertility of the soil. There is greater
certainty, also, for the farmer. He does
not have all his eggs in one basket, and a
bad season does not leave him with re-
ceipts running far behind his inevitable
expenses. The weather that is bad fol
one crop is favorable for others, and he
has always reasonable certainty of hav.
ing something to sell. Of late years
shrewd farmers have learned to carry
the system Of mixed husbandry steE
further and add clover seed to their list
of available crops. Eight or ten to fifty
or seventy.fve bushels of clover seed, az
grown on many farms every year, are s
valuable addition to the farm receipts
for the year. The money thus secured
is made quite as easily as any which the
farmer receives, and ! believe it is mad,
not only without injury but with posi-
tive benefit to the soil, at least to its pro
ductive capacity. The farmers wht
grow clover seed are men who becom
rich, for every year their fields becom
more fertile. The shade which the clio
yer leaves during the heats of summe
furnish to the ground increases th
nitrogen which it holds, while the Glove
roots perform the equally benefcia
operation Of permeating the subsoil an


bringing up the unavailable fertilit


from beneath and making it available.


These advantages are, to some extenl


incident to the use of clover in any way


But the farmer who grows clover see


shades and mulches his soil more pc


fectly, and secures stronger and deepe


growth Of root thanif the plant is pa


tured or is plowed under at an earle


period. There is further and very in


pertant advantage in growing Glove


seed. He who has seed to buy sows spa
ingly. He who sows it can afford to 90


literally. Not less than one peck p1


acre should be sown. Attera few year


growing of clover seed, the ground wi


be filed with the seed which will sprir


up in after years as they are turned


the surface. Two years ago. one Of n


neighbors plowed q field in. the fa