THE PHILOSOPHY OF FARM IMPROVEMENTS. 187 



By converting a portion of his pasture lands into mowing fields, 

 the dair^^man may supply himself with an increased amount of early 

 cut hay for late spring and early summer use. His cows should be 

 allowed only a limited range until his pastures have developed a 

 rank growth of grass upon which to maintain his stock in midsum- 

 mer, and by which the pastures themselves must be protected from 

 the ruinous effects of too close cropping. By thus continuing his 

 winter rations until early summer, the dairyman not only increases 

 his present profits by securing a large yield of dairy products, but 

 he also avails himself of the advantages of soiling with a smaller 

 expenditure of labor. 



Fourth — The stock farmer as a rule should grow and gather his 

 own plant food as well as stock food. He should make his farm 

 self-sustaining in this so far as practicable, as in other farm 

 products. He has an endless variety of opportunities which he should 

 learn to recognize and improve. 



One importaat cunsideration in the arrangement of a practical 

 83'stem, is the characteristic habit of growth in the crops which we 

 produce. When practicable we should select those which draw 

 their sustenance largely from the atmosphere and sub-soil ; those 

 which serve best as a medium for gathering plant food from sources 

 outside of the feeding ground of ordinary crops. There is a wide 

 difference in the habits of plants in this particular. Let us apply 

 figures to this subject, that we may understand more clearly what 

 may be accomplished by a proper selection of crops. 



If I purchase ten pounds of large Northern clover seed, and after 

 a proper preparation of the soil sow it upon an acre of clay or loam 

 land, ii should produce in an average season two tons or more, of 

 well dried clover hay. But we will assume that it will produce but 

 one and one-half toQS. Taking the market value of the average 

 commercial fertilizers as our standard of valuation, we have by this 

 operation harvested §13. 14 worth of plant food, as the manurial 

 value of a ton of clover hay is $8.76 by this standard. But this is 

 not all. It has been demoustraled by repeated investigaiions that 

 the roots of a crop of clover contain as much plant food as the 

 harvest c'd crop, and it so the value of the plant food contained in the 

 entire clover products would obviously be $26.28, per acre. It is 

 true that the crop is grown upon the soil, and is not a net gain of 

 plant food ; but the habit of growth in the clover crop is such that 

 it extends its roots very deeply into the subsoil far beyond the reach 



