No. 6. DEPARTMENT OK AGRICULTURE .^2S 



I >isiiiissin;; llic food fonini-c, \\v must now j^ivc at(«'iilion to a fai- 

 more difticiilt ami impoi'tanl i»hasc of tlu' subject; I mean the; resto 

 ration and maintonnuce of soil fertility with the use of clovers. 



It is beyond question that the supreme need in the soils of our 

 State, as well as in all the older states in the East, is humus rich 

 in the forms of nitrogen. The present superiority of our western 

 empires arises chietly from the vast stores of humus with which 

 Ihe prairies are coA'^ered. When this accumulation of decayed vege- 

 table matter is passed, their soil is found inferior to our own. It 

 has not the mineral element of fertility that ours possesses. Our 

 soil contains large quantities of these mineral elements, unavailable 

 for the most part, but present and needing only such agents as will 

 disintegrate them to become available to our growing crops. Such 

 agents are supplied by decaying vegetable matter in the soil. The 

 acids set free in such decomposition attack the insoluble luineral^ 

 co7upounds and reduce them to soluble forms. This action, with 

 the improved mechanical condition of the soil which it produces, is 

 common to all decaying vegetation. The clovers render this ser- 

 vice and go much farther; they gather large quantities of nitrogen 

 from the air and add it to the soil as a net gain above the benefits 

 derived from the decay of the non-leguminous plants. 



Some years ago the Cornell Experiment Station conducted the 

 following experiment: There were sown three plots, side by side, 

 one to Crimson clover, one to Red clover and one to Mammoth 

 clover. In three months and four days a chemical examination 

 was made, which showed that the Crimson clover roots and tops had 

 gathered at the rate of 155 pounds of nitrogen per acre; the Mam- 

 moth, 145 pounds and the Red, 103 pounds. The amount of nitrogen 

 contained in the acre of Crimson clover, after it had been growing 

 but three months and four days, was equal to that contained in 

 13 tons of average stable manure. 



Several years ago I began the production of Crimson clover as a 

 fertilizer by seeding one acre of early potato ground, on the 15th 

 of August. There was a fine stand and a rank growth, the clover 

 averaging thirty inches in height. On the 25th of the following May 

 this was turned under, and in July the ground was set to late cab- 

 bage. On the next April this land, with two adjoining acres of the 

 same kind and condition, excej)t the clover, were planted to early 

 potatoes. From the beginning the difference between the two soils 

 was marked. The clover acre remaining spongy and moist through- 

 out the dry summer, while the adjoining ground became very dry and 

 dusty. On digging the tubers, the difference was still more marked, 

 for from the clover acre were picked up 202 bushels of merchantable 

 tubers, the first w-eek in July, that wholesaled at 70 cents i)er 

 bushel, while from the two adjoining acres were secured but 112^ 



