No. 7. DEPARTMB.NT OF AGRICULTURE. 671 



speciall}^ built refrigerator cars to their large warehouses iu all the 

 principal cities and distributing from there to the smaller towns 

 and even our country butcher, can get his supply delivered at his 

 door by the quarter or even a package of beef soup, so thorough is 

 their system of handling. All of which is taking hundreds of thou- 

 sands daily of our money that we should have, or a part of it at 

 least, to get better breeding cattle, improve our farms and homes 

 and thus, enable us all to more fully understand general farming, 

 the greatest of all industries. 



CLOVER AND HOW TO GET IT. 



By C. L. TREGO, McCou^^iHe. Pu. 



Clover has been the Juniata county farmer's best friend, but our 

 best friend has gone back on us. What has clover done for us, and 

 what have we done for the clover plant, are questions which we 

 may well consider. What can we do for clover, and what may we 

 reasonably expect of it in return, is the true subject of this essay. 



Clover differs in its chemical formation from any of the other 

 staple crops that we raise in that it contains a greater proportion 

 of those elements called protein, or the nitrogenous substances of 

 [dants which the animal system has power to transform into the 

 albuminoids, which go to form blood, bone, tendons, tissue, etc., and 

 to build up and strengthen the digestive organism and indirectly to 

 strengthen the nerves. Scientists tell us that clover has power 

 through the influence of bacteria, which form nodules on its roots, 

 to take nitrogen directly from the air and appropriate it to its own 

 development, and the chemists tell us the matured plant contains 

 a trifle over 6^ per cent, digestible crude protein, while the best 

 timothy hay contains only about 2f per cent. Hence we see why it 

 is such a valuable feed of itself, and why? It will increase the food 

 value of other and less nitrogenous plants when fed with them. The 

 other fodder and cereal plants which we raise require more or less 

 nitrogen for development and as they have not the means of ac- 

 quiring it except from the soil, their wants must be supplied, and 

 to do this entirely from a commencial source is impracticable, owing 

 to a limited supply and the consequent high price of the amount 

 required and the low price of the product. Here the clover with its 

 accompanying microbes has stepped in and filled the breach by 

 gathering the nitrogen from the great fountain-head (the air), and 

 placing it, a volatile gas, in a tangible form, which may be appro- 

 priated to the sustenance of the animal kingdom or returned to the 

 soil to feed other and more dependent plants. When clover grew 

 abundantly with us we had no other thought when plowing down a 

 sod but that we would raise a good crop of corn, oats and wheat 

 and then put it to clover to recuperate, and at the same time furnish 

 us an abundant supply of the most valuable hay. But without 

 clover we cannot raise even one good crop without buying costly fer- 

 tilizer and then the care on which the fertilizer comes in on would 

 usually be sufiicient to carry out our surplus grain. Clover then is 



