No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 443 



the land. The chemist cannot tell you. He can analyze the soil 

 and tell you hoAv much phosphorus, nitrogen, humus and lime there 

 is there and a lot of other things, but he cannot tell you how much 

 is available. The farmer must ascertain that himself; and I found 

 I did not need potash and nitrogen on my soil when I asked the 

 laud what it needed by checking it and by putting on one plot the 

 fertilizer and on another nothing, and I found my land only needed 

 phosphorus. I did not get any appreciable increase by applying 

 nitrogen and potash on the clay soils. I am not speaking of sandy 

 soils where you may need some potash. In all probability on the clay 

 soils you only need to apply phosphorus; you may need nitrogen. 

 And I would say after you have sown that crop you can tell to the 

 line where you applied the phosphorus. I put on one hundred 

 pounds of nitrate of soda on the grass after it is started up well. 

 That will nourish it until the roots run out and get plant food to 

 grow it. It is one of the best things to put on the grass started 

 on timothy meadows. The land may need nitrogen and I believe in 

 that way by applying at the time of sowing a mixture of potash and 

 nitrate of soda, tankage and fish scrap or something of that kind 

 so that if gradually becomes available. 



Another thing we want to remember in applying fertilizer on 

 plowed ground is, that potash and phosphorus become fixed at the 

 point of contact. If you apply on top of the land and don't harrow 

 it afterward, the danger is that it will become fixed at the surface; 

 so you want to stir the soil. I harrow thoroughly to get it down. 

 Fixation takes place within twenty-four hours after application. 



I have said nothing about permanent meadows. How many have 

 permanent meadows that you don't plow? I want to see if there 

 are any farmers who have them. Quite a few. I think, my friends, 

 that we ought to have just as few of them as possible. Really, I 

 don't believe very much in permanent meadows, and yet there are 

 farms on which we must leave a certain piece of ground to meadow 

 indefinitely and they must be fed like the pasture field. There is not 

 an acre of ground that pays better on my farm than my meadow lands 

 because they produce heavy crops of clover and timothy hay. We 

 get from twenty to twenty-two dollars a ton for it. Some farmers 

 have meadows they wish to maintain. Those meadows run out for 

 the same causes that the pasture lands run out. They need feed. 

 Some of my neighbors have been following this method: They cut 

 up the meadows immediately after harvest and reseed — and there is 

 no better time to do it if the season is right. The mixture they use 

 is timothy, red top and clover, alsike and red clover. They sow a 

 little commercial fertilizer because they want a good growth and we 

 must get it ready to go into winter. If you have manure you can 

 apply it. The farmers have been flattering themselves that they were 

 giving back to the soil all they took from it, but they were not. 

 They were robbing it every time by pasturing it too closely. This 

 we ought not to do. We have been grazing too closely. When I began 

 the business of farming I began with a mortgage and I went out 

 and bought sheep and turned them into the grass I had left in the 

 Fall. I would have better carried the mortgage longer. You cannot 

 afford to graze vour meadows closelv. In fact, I don't believe a 

 meadow ought to be grazed. I believe the ideal way of handling a 

 meadow is to take the first crop off and then, unless the other crop 

 iu large, let it go back to the soil, covering up the land and making 



