70 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



Mr. KobertUre: Jethro TuU held that cultivation without manure was 

 all sufficient. In our farmers' club it is thought that a cheaper way than 

 cultivation or manuring, and one producing equally good results, is to cover 

 the surface between rows with cull lumber. 



Dr. Kedzie : Keeping the soil covered induces capillary action. Liebig said 

 that the farmer need only apply mineral, or as he called them, soil elements 

 and no air elements, and that by analysis of the ash you could tell precisely 

 the manure needed for each plant. Bat his theories did not work well in 

 practice. 



As to the quality of commercial manures for sale in our markets, the last 

 legislature passed a law providing for their analysis and imposing penalties 

 for fraud. 



[The text of this law will be found in full on another page of this report.] 



As to whether it is cheaper to buy commercial fertilizers or to produce the 

 manure on the farm I take issue with Mr. Geddes. I think that in ordinary 

 cases a man cannot afford to Ijuy commercial manures. At the market rates 

 for such things a ton of clover hay would be worth $12.00 a ton simply for 

 the manure it would make. 



FARMING ON LIGHT SOILS. 



BY C. L. HALL OF NORVELL. 

 [Read before the Farmers' Institute at Grass Lake, Feb. 16, 1886.] 



My experience has been mostly upon light soils, and I find that they are- 

 not store houses of fertility like the deep black soils of the west, to be 

 drawn on at pleasure; but that each crop taken from it reduces its fertility. 

 I find too, that it contains but very little inert plant food that can be mad& 

 available by turning it up to the action of the frosts and the heat of the 

 sun, as is the case with heavier soils, and if we expect it to produce continu- 

 ally we must feed it. 



We must sell but little to be consumed away from the farm, as that robs 

 the soil of so much of the elements of fertility. Then what kind of crops 

 shall we raise and what style of farming is best adapted to this kind of soil ? 



In the first place, I would have every acre not in crops seeded down to 

 clover as it is a well-known fact that there is no fertilizer so cheap as red 

 clover, and wherever it has been raised and a rotation of crops has been prac- 

 ticed there has been no apparent loss of fertility. But the great difficulty 

 upon light soils is the failure to get a good catch of clover. This failure 

 is due mainly to two or three causes. Where seed is sown on top of the 

 ground and left to take care of itself the spring is often so dry that the seeds 

 never sprout and if there is moisture and shade enough for it to come up, 

 the hot sun of a week will dry the soil^elow the roots and it dies. Then 

 where the seed is sown upon freshly harrowed soil and harrowed in, the earth 

 lies so loosely about the seed that it never germinates. This difficulty may 

 be overcome in a measure by the use of a roller drill, the rollers passing over 

 the ground presses it down firmly leaving a narrow hard bed for the seed, 

 the first rain that comes washes the soil down firmly on top of the seed and 



