336 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



Dr. Kedzie: If you will follow down the stalk you will find there is a 

 little insect that has eaten the stalk off down in the sheath. 



Mr. Silsby : What can we use on our sod to destroy that insect ; will salt 

 or lime do it? 



Dr. Beal : Neither salt nor lime will do any good. Kotation of crops is 

 what you want. If you plow the sod up of tener the worms will not accumu- 

 late very much. 



Mr. Rose: I wonder if turnips would be a profitable crop to turn in as a 

 green manuring crop instead of clover ? They make a heavy growth of tops 

 before bottoming, and do it quickly. 



Dr. Kedzie : Green manure is the best if you have not the stock to feed 

 it to, if you can raise crops and turn them under you can raise your laud in 

 that way quicker than any other way in the world ; but there is more economy 

 in feeding stock and plowing under what they leave and the manure. 



Mr. Edmonds : Two years ago I sowed two acres and a half of strap leaved 

 turnips. I couldn't take care of them, but they grew finely, and just before 

 the ground froze up I plowed them under a foot deep. The next crop came 

 up rapidly, a rich, rank, beautiful growth, and was the best where the largest 

 turnips had been. Before spring came there was not a sign of a turnip on 

 the ground. 



Mr. Sewell: My practice has been to pull the big turnips for winter feed- 

 ing of cattle, and pasture the rest with sheep, using hurdle fences. This is 

 the English practice, and is better for the land than any other way of treat- 

 ing the crop. If farmers would do that in this country they would receive 

 the benefit of it; but there are not many of us who are able; we are not 

 forehanded enough. No man ought to come onto the plains without a 

 year's supply, and then it would be a pretty tight nip for him. 



President Willits: I have heard it stated that your rainfall here is insuf- 

 ficient or is not well distributed at the time when it is needed the most. 

 How is that? 



Mr. Love: During my ten years' residence in Crawford county I have 

 learned that onr soil is the best I ever saw for resisting drought, and in that 

 ten years we have had but two droughts. We get very heavy rains generally. 



Mr. Lound: During my residence here I never saw the land when the 

 corn would not grow all summer, if it is well cultivated. As dry as it was 

 last summer, and we had no rain from some time in June to the 14th of 

 August, the sweet corn in my garden never rolled at all. 



Mr. Evans : I have lived in Clinton and Montcalm counties, and in each 

 have seen worse droughts than during the last five years here. I have not 

 seen any droughts here that the crops would suffer from. Where the land is 

 well cultivated it will hold the moisture better than where it is not. If you 

 dig down on the top of a hill that is cultivated you will find it moist enough 

 for any crops to grow, right alongside of where it is very dry where 

 uncultivated. 



Mr. Rose: Last summer I noticed that particularly in my garden. There 

 was no time that I could not with just one scrape of the hoe get moist dirt. 

 Within five or six rods of there I had occasion to dig in the soil where it 

 hadn't been cultivated and I found no signs of moisture for four feet. 



Mr. Niles: Reference has been made here to the roller for compacting 

 the soil. The American Agriculturist describes an instrument that I have 

 used for a couple of years past, that can be made very cheaply and quickly and 

 which answers the purpose admirably. It consists of two logs about ten feet 



