pretty well run down by raising small grain year after year. I commenced seeding with clover, and a system of crop rotation - corn, oats, clover. One crop of each and sometimes two crops of grass. Of course I keep all the stock I can on my farm and make cords of manure every year, but if I had to draw that manure one mile away I believe I could keep up the fertility of the farm cheaper with clover turned under. It is not to be supposed that because clover is so rich in the elements of plant food which I have named, that we can continue this rotation and cropping with impunity and transport the product in hay and grain; nature does not recuperate in that way, but I do assert that the product fed upon the farm with all the manure saved, or the clover turned under, we need have no fears of an impoverished soil.

The farmer and dairyman who are posted as to the value of food products know full well that clover is one of the most valuable crops they can raise, and to such I need not say that one ton of good clover hay is worth more than one ton of the best timothy; but the careless husbandman will not believe what others have tested. The most thrifty and successful swine breeders now make clover pasture and clover hay, an important ration for all their breeding stock. And indeed, some of the best breeders assert that they never have had a case of hog cholera in their herds. They feed very sparingly of corn, but instead of this, clover, bran, shorts, oats, or in short nitrogenous food, which forms healthy tissue, and the fat will take care of itself. Mr. Theo. Lewis tells us that he has made a productive farm out of a worn out soil, by raising hogs and clover.

I know there is an objection on the part of some to raising clover because it winter-kills, and by others, that it is a difficult crop to save for winter food. Now first, it must be understood that clover is a biennial plant; it must not be cropped close in the fall after the spring seeding, for it needs some of the protection which nature designed by the leaves to protect the tender roots. The first cutting of the medium does not yield seed, as you all know, so if a permanent meadow for a few years is desired as a mixture

with other grasses, the seed heads must not be entirely stripped from the field.

As to cutting and curing, one good sunshine day is all sufficient. Mr. Bonham's method of Ohio, is this: He cuts after the dew is off, turns it over, or uses a tedder and draws in before night, stows in a tight barn, and covers the top with dry straw or hay, and it comes out bright. And I know of scores of farmers who practice this method; but to insure success the barn or storage place must be tight on all sides, a tight bottom and dry hay or straw on top.

But with the silo there need be no excuse for not having a plenty of the best kind of fodder for all kinds of stock, including the pigs and chickens.

I have tried to give you, upon the science of chemistry and by practice, some of the reasons with facts showing why the clover plant above all others is one of the best for the farmer to raise. But all the facts, of science or chemistry will do us no good unless we put them to an intelligent use.

It is related of a certain nobleman who took much pains to have a well kept garden, and paid well the hire of a professional gardener, that in riding out one day he passed a small garden where everything was growing with the utmost luxuriance. Calling the owner to him he said, you must have a very learned and skillful gardener. Oh, no; he is only a common man; and he introduced his gardener, to whom the nobleman paid his respects, and inquired the reason of such thrifty vines and rank foliage, when mine look so puny. O, said the young man, this is all chance. Chance, replied the nobleman, that can not be. Then the gardener related how by a mere accident he heard two men talking about the value of charcoal, and among other things that it was good plant food, and then I borrowed some books and read more about it. So you see it was all chance to me. The nobleman returned home more mortified than ever at the sickly looking appearance of his grapes; he summoned his gardener and related to him what he had seen and heard. Well, said his gardener, that is nothing new. Prof. Liebig has taught all of this before, and I knew all about it. Did

you try it on my vines? I can't say I have; it did not chance to come into my head. Nay, replied the peer, chance put it into your head, but thought never took it out. This is a plain lesson. However valuable science may be, it can not do all for us. We must have well directed thought. And observation guided by science, will put us on the right track to work in harmony with nature's laws to more succsssful results with our methods.

Mr. H. Z. Fish

DISCUSSION.

In what way can you sow clover on old soil without ploughing it? Also, wild land that has been cleared off this winter and burned over; what is the best method for seeding it into clover?

Mr. Allen- Well, sir, I should go to work and plough it over, and prepare it for seed, although if you want to harrow it, you can do it; all land that clover is expected to grow upon. It is desirable that it should be covered up, not more than one-half to one inch deep, but it should be covered up and the soil pressed around the seed.

Mr. Hoxie — I should advise everybody to sow clover seed early as they could, even on the snow, but I would advise to put it more than half an inch deep. The best crop I ever had, the man sowed right on the furrow, as it was left by the plough, but I would advise a full inch, rather than half an inch, and if some of it is too deep, it will come up next year. One of the best farmers I know, who has raised 300 bushels a year, puts on the seed and harrows it in; just as he does his oats, or his wheat.

Mr. Allen - I came into possession of a piece of land in Adams county, and I had to do something with it, and I tried various methods of seeding that land to clover, but I never succeeded until it was covered up with a plank, like this one I have here.

Pres. Morrison - Have you ever used any salt or land plaster or gypsum, in order to get a good catch on sandy soil.

Mr. Allen I am a regular plaster crank.

I am asked

my experience on Alsike clover. The only objection is, that on strong land, you can not mow it, without a great deal of trouble. It makes good hay and good pasture. Sown with clover, I think it will do very well. My experience is that a mixture of grasses is very much better than clover alone. Blue grass, orchard grass, and clover will make the very best pasture.

Mr. Webster-Some five years ago, a portion of a farm of mine was seeded to clover. It looked very fine in the spring; there came a cold spell, and it was completely killed out. I ploughed what I could in a quarter of a day, and I put potatoes in every third furrow. There was probably a cultivated it, and har

little over an acre, and I planted and vested 300 bushels of potatoes, from that land, and it cost me altogether $21; seven cents a bushel. I have kept count on other land, and it cost me thirteen cents.

Mr. Gurler I have learned that clover meadow planted to corn, will yield ten bushels to the acre more than any other soil.

Mr. Allen As I told you I am a regular clover crank. I have been making experiments with clover for twenty-five years, and plaster if sown with the clover will help it to secure a good catch, and will be strong in the land for three years. It will make you a good catch, and then the next year it will secure a good strong growth of clover.

Mr. Cheever Do you think that this gypsum on rich prairie land would have as good an effect as on your sandy land?

Mr. Allen- No, sir; it won't do any good on prairie land, there is lime enough in prairie land.

Mr. Smith Ten years ago I bought a little farm in the woods, and I broke it up, and that year I raised five hundred and twenty bushels of wheat on it. The neighbors all said I was going to ruin my farm. One year I raised clover, but with the exception of that year I have never raised less than five hundred bushels, and last year I raised over seven hundred bushels of wheat and four hundred bushels of oats, on that little hole stuck back in the hills, and there has been nothing but clover to keep up that land.

Mr. Gould-It depends a little on how big that hole in the hills is. How large is it?

Answer There's about fifty-five acres under cultivation. Mr. Hoxie- Mr. Rogers, have you had good success in sowing land plaster on your land?

Mr. Rogers - Yes, I have. Some twelve or fourteen years ago I bought a farm up here, that was said to be worn out, it was a very poor farm. I sowed a twenty acre piece to wheat and oats, and I got about seven bushels of wheat to the acre and about fifteen bushels of oats. I sowed clover seed the next year, and sowed eighty pounds of plaster at the same time, and the clover came up good but it didn't grow. The next spring I went over there and it looked very dull, I just went and put on one hundred pounds more plaster, and there never was a larger crop of clover grown in this county than on that piece of ground. I think it cut two and a half or three tons of hay, and the second growth I think they got five bushels of seed to the acre. Now, another thing, my seeding timothy entirely died out, and where I had my wheat I sowed it to timothy, and put on a common drag and dragged it in well, and it didn't come up. I kept watching it, and I concluded my seed wasn't good. Then I took my potato patch and sowed that down with rye and put in my horse rake and just run over it, and I never saw so pretty a catch. I concluded I got that timothy seed in too deep. I know that clover will lay in the ground ten years if it is deep in the ground.

Question plaster?

Answer

I want to know the best methods of sowing

The way I sow it you can sow about eighty acres a day, if you take three men, one to drive, and one each side and a boy to fill up the kettles. You keep driving right around your piece.

Question - There is one objection to sowing plaster and that is the dust and dirt?

Answer - Yes, you get your face dirty, I know.

Question There's a good many claim that plaster does the best when the clover is a couple of inches high? Mr. Hoxie- That is all humbug.