492 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



After another talk with Mr. Powell, that fall I tried again and bad 

 the satisfaction of complete success in four of mj fields. These four 

 crimson clover fields, the first in my (;ounty, were during the next 

 springtheadmirationand wonder of my neighbors for many miles and 

 your then colleague on this Board, Mr. Randall Bisbing, came seven 

 miles and walked with me through clover reaching considerably 

 above our knees. ]Jut a few years before to the certain knowledge 

 of all these people this farm had been considered absolutely worn 

 out and vet here I could show them clover fields such as the older 

 men had not seen since their boyhood and this in face of the fact that 

 hardly more than a half doze«i farmers in the county could succeed 

 in raising red clover excepting in well manured fields. 



These four fields were i^lowed under that spring and I have since 

 followed this practice year after year where possible. Where, be- 

 cause of the limit of time in which crimson clover must be sown, I 

 am unable to get it in, I have used cow peas and in one case soja 

 bea4is, or where too late for these, for they should with us be plowed 

 under after the first nipping frost, I have continued to sow rye, com- 

 bined however with "sand or winter vetches." This idea I got from 

 Europe from a friend to whom I wrote. The vetch is a plant be- 

 longing to the leguminous species, the same family to which clover 

 belongs; it is of a viney trailing growth and the rye is added simply 

 to give support to the vining vetch plant. As a nitrogen gatherer 

 I consider the vetch superior to even crimson clover; the globules 

 on its roots are almost a continuation of small cockscombs and the 

 quantity of nitrogen stored therefore supposedly greater; but as a 

 producer of vegetable matter simply it is inferior to crimson clover, 

 as neither its roots nor its top have the branching habit of the 

 clovers. Nevertheless it is extremely and equally valuable because 

 it can be sown so late in the season and will not wi«ter-kill. 

 Wherever rye or wheat grow there will vetches grow, and when- 

 ever rve or wheat can be sown, with us as late as October 15, their 

 can vetches be sown successfully. 



Keei) in mind all this time that with the exception of the first 

 year when but four fields were in crop, I have never in all these years 

 lost a year's crop from any of these seven fields, two of which are in 

 raspberries and blackberries sown between the rows every year with 

 crimson clover or with cow peas, either of them plowed in in proper 

 time. Keep also in mind that while I was at first obliged to use 

 complete fertilizers containing the expensive item of nitrogen for 

 several years past I have been able to dispense with this expensive 

 ingredient and have used only potash and phosphoric acid. Had I 

 knowii of crimson clover and cow i)eas and vetches four or five years 

 sooner I should have saved on the purchase of nitrogen just that 

 mm 1; longer. I consider that my crops, if in the early stages of the 



