No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 239 



if a field is not riponed for any crop by tliis timo, it is on the 

 way rapidl}' to grow heavy crops in the future. I have tried this 

 plan for years, it has never failed; I have had otliers try it and 

 it has not failed. I give it to yon today for a certainty in re- 

 storing soil from an unproductive to a productive state. I call it 

 ripening a field for a crop because I have no better name to express 

 it. Once a field has attained this notch of fertility it can still be 

 carried on to the profit of the farmer. 



The reason that I prefer oats and peas is owing to the fact, that it 

 is such a fine cleaning crop, it cleans a field bettor than any crop 

 I know, the spring weeds smother under it, for it is a half trailing 

 crop and the weeds start on the stubble only to be turned under 

 by the plow so that weeds have been kept down in the process. 

 I pay no attention to rotation; used to do it, but quit it because 

 there is nothing in it in my system of farming. I can not afford 

 to fool around rotation, too many American farmers have been 

 rotated enough, if nothing else. I want a working system that 

 feeds soil and live stock and lifts mortgages. I also believe in 

 selling all the timothy hay that grows on the farm, and as long 

 as I farm I will raise it. Its roots are great soil harrowers if fed, 

 they will do a work for the physical and mechanical condition of 

 soil that I can get in no other way, they will not take the place of 

 clover and just as little will clover take the place or do the work 

 of timothy. Timothy never can do its soil work in one year, clover 

 can; but it takes timothy two, and then it can not do it unless 

 it is fall or early winter, fed with manure that lays close to the 

 ground, like dead leaves pack in forests and make regretable mold 

 for oaks, it is then and only then that timothy will do its best 

 work along with red top. These two grasses put a fine texture and 

 finish on soil — the third year timothy retreats and leaves the field 

 largely to red-top, which toughens a sod but in my experience does 

 not leave the soil in the pliable and friable condition it ought to 

 be — the working of timothy in the soil is different from red-top, 

 timothy is inclined to bunch the second year, red-top closes up 

 the space between the bunches but under favorable and unfavor- 

 able treatment both these grasses appear very differently in their 

 field service; their uses up to a certain point, like in everything 

 else can not be disputed but highly appreciated. 



r\illow-farmers, I would like you to see a field that has been 

 treated in the manner I have just described to you at the end 

 of three years — a field of little or no soil will respond to treatment 

 of that kind, for in three years I have turned ground into soil, 

 while a piece of ground rotated as has been both preaehed and 

 practiced for many previous years has simply parnlyzed the farms 

 of the Eastern and Middle states. I say give live stock half the 

 care, feed and grooming that horses get (and most of them get 

 none too much), there wiil be a different story to tell about the 

 farm in three years' time. If the farmer gets more out of the 

 acre, T am sure he will be able then to get more out of the market. 

 There is much talk about the advanced registry cow, but I can 

 breed a farm up to produce four tons of hay easier than a farmer 

 can breed a herd of cows, each one making fourteen pounds of 

 butter a piece in seven days. I have tried both, and the herd regis- 



