324 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



bushels pel- acie. it is true tbat this ditl'ereuce was not wholly due 

 1,0 the additional elements oi fertility derived from the clover, but 

 in a large measure to the mechanical condition of the soil resulting 

 Crom the addition of this large amount of hunins. 



Bej'oud the elements of fertility that the clover gives to the soil, 

 and their value as humus, they aid in soil improvement by perfor- 

 ating the sub-soil with their long roots, thus opening it to the action 

 of the air and pumping up the soluble plant food that had leached 

 beyond plow deiJth. 



The importance of the clovers as fertilizers is being appreciated, 

 but man}" are discouraged by the diificulty of securing a crop. To 

 this we must now give attention, 



I believe that when we understand the demands of the clover 



plant as well as we understand the demands of our common farm 



plants, such as corn, oats and ])otatoes, we will be able to raise as 



good a crop of clover as we do that of the others. Our jjoor soil illy 



worked will raise nothing Avell. Certain unforeseen conditions of 



weather may militate against any crop, but no more against clover 



than against others. Any other crop treated as unwisely as we 



often treat the clover plant would result in as great a failure as we 



often experience with this. The fact is that clover is no baby; 



it is one of our hardiest plants. It takes hold on earth and air 



and sun, and what it cannot secure from one it draws from the 



other. Frost and flood and drouth do not affect it as readil}' as 



they do most other farm plants. It asks no special favors. It only 



asks what we concede to other plants; an open field and a fair 



tight. And this reasonable demand is precisely what we have 



usually ignored. >Vho would think of growing a crop of corn and 



of oats, or of rye and of buckwheat,. or of potatoes and of timothy 



on the same ground at the same time? And yet in the production of 



clover we have died to raise three full crops on the same ground at 



llie same time, and we have generally failed. \A'e give the use of 



a field a 3'ear to corn, oats or wheat; but to the chner cro]), worth 



more hard cash than either of the others, we give the chance to 



steal an existence (he best it i)i;iy in the shadow of the others. We 



have thought it should have a "nurse crop" to shade it, as though 



the sunlight wei-e not one of th(^ supreme conditions of its growth. 



A nurse that consumes (he moistui'e, fertility and sun-light needed 



by the young plant is not a profitable oue. Prof. Thorne, of the 



Ohio Experiment Station, at ^Vooster, in a letter to me in which he 



recited the observations of the Station, concluded by saying: "It 



is our firm conviction that the so-called 'nurse crop' is the robber 



crop." True, now and then we may secure a stand of clover in the 



wheat or lye crop, but it is usually uneven, strong where the grain 



is weak, and weak where the grain is sdong; luU a good, excn s1and 



is the exception and not the rule. 



