154 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



have a farm that everybody will look up to." Well, when you get back 

 home, and next spring when you begin to put these things into opera- 

 tion, you will see stars before you get through. Every farm in Michigan 

 is different. The land that Mr, Eraman has Avants potash, while per- 

 haps the next farm does not want it, and no man can tell you just 

 what you want. Wallace told you wonderful stories — we took two 

 hours and drove up there and went over his place. You could almost 

 count the stalks on that big forty — it was June grass! (Laughter.) 

 The laud does not produce — you stir up a little batch of phosphates 

 and nitrogen — it may look all right — but wliether it will give the re- 

 quired result depends on something else — ^you must go back and look 

 into the past of the farm. Do not go back on the farm till you know 

 something about it. It is not the man who has the most of dollars in 

 his pocket that knows the most about a piece of land that he may 

 pick up, but it is the man who is making his living off that land — • 

 and right here I want to say, "Go slow on this sweet clover deal." We 

 have a lot of experiments — we have 40 acres^ — they were not very good 

 — the winter and snow were not good — we had |20() invested in sweet 

 clover seed — I have an idea that it is sunk, and prettj^ deep too. I find 

 that if there is any success in farming operations, you must pay a 

 lot of attention to details or you will not get anywhere. If you miss that 

 one thing, you will miss the whole thing. If you can get sweet clover 

 to grow you can get alfalfa, and alfalfa has sweet clover beat a mile. 

 When you have only a crust of bread and come in to dinner hungry, 

 you will eat it rather than starve. That is the difference between sweet 

 clover and alfalfa- — one is palatable, the other is not. I can take you 

 to spots where the conditions are just right and the yield is fine; then 

 a rod from there perhaps you could not get the soil to grow a stalk. 

 Find out whether jow will win out with this or that crop — there are 

 other cover crops that are much more to be depended uj)on than sweet 

 clover. These new things may be all right in some places and under 

 certain circumstances, but until you have tried them out in a small 

 way, and know .for yourself what they will do with you — GO SLOW. 



A Member : I want to criticize this man for saying what he did about 

 going slow — this fellow went too fast. If he knew the red clover would 

 do well on his land, why did he invest so much in sweet clover seed? 

 I went slower than that. I am satisfied that it is a failure on my 

 land, for when I sowed it, it did not even come up. 



Question: What time of the year is best to put it in? 



Answer: It is better to prepare the land before in the cultivation 

 of potatoes and eradicate the weeds, i>ut out into the cover crop of 

 vetch or rye. Plow in the spring, cultivate until the latter part of June, 

 then put in your clover and you will get the best results. 



A Member: Of course there are different conditions — right by my 

 house we had splendid results with sweet clover. If I had not cut 

 it three times, I do not know where it would have stopped. I got two 

 cuttings of the sweet clover. I did not lime that ground but it was 

 rich in potash — was a clay soil. It was chemically right for the sweet 

 clover. 



A Member: Sweet clover is regarded as a noxious weed — I was 



