454 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



table matter to such soils would not only be useless, but might be absolutely- 

 detrimental. 



But humus incorporated with stiff clay soils, makes them friable, and gives 

 them that tilth so necessary for growing crops. It would be difficult to get too 

 much into such soils: their mechanical structure would be improved in about 

 the ratio they were made to contain this valuable ingredient. 



Our soil is neither a stiff clay nor a vegetable loam. It is what I suppose 

 would generally be called a loose calcareous drift, and contains an abundance 

 of the mineral elements generally thought necessary for plant food. It does 

 not, like clay soils, need humus to improve its mechanical structure. It is fri- 

 able enough without any such help. Then does it need vegetable matter at 

 all ? I think it does. The more the better. I am of the opinion that could 

 we get as much into it as the prairie soils contain, we would have, practically, 

 the best soil in the world. I further believe that it is perfectly practicable to 

 secure a sufficient amount at moderate cost, indeed at no cost. Yes, I think 

 we can get it for nothing, and '' something thrown into the bargain." 



How is this to be obtained on such terms? I last week came across an arti- 

 cle by the Hon. George Geddes, so exactly in point that I copy a large portion 

 of it. It is an answer to an Iowa farmer, whose land had been rented and run 

 down. He says : 



" Had a proper system been carried out on this farm, the manure it wanted, 

 not merely to keep it good, bat to make it grow better, would have been pro- 

 duced in the form of clover and other forage crops. Clover turned under when 

 the proper time has come, in a judicious rotation, is manure that costs nothing, 

 and where a man begins in time to take care of his land by the use of clover, 

 and having a proper proportion of live stock on his farm, he can do better 

 than to go a mile for " coarse" manure, even when it is given to him. 



THE CLOVER CUKE. 



" Sow clover liberally — say one-fourth of a bushel of seed to the acre, when 

 the wheat crop is small. After the wheat is harvested, put a bushel of gypsum 

 (plaster) on the acre. The next year plaster or cut for hay; the third year 

 pasture or mow once, and, when the time has come to sow winter wheat, if de- 

 sired, it will do to plow under all the clover the furrows will hold, and sow the 

 wheat, or let the sod thus turned over remain till early spring; then sow seed 

 on it. Timothy seed with the clover seed, say four to six quarts to the acre, 

 is very desirable where the land is to remain in grass two or more years. The 

 timothy helps cover the land, and adds much to the value of the hay crop, as 

 well as to that of the pasture. Where winter wheat is raised, it is my rule to 

 sow with the wheat the timothy seed, and the next spring sow the clover seed. 

 The value of the sod — that is, the roots and a stubble just mown of clover two 

 years old, that had timothy, as described, mixed with it — is greater than any 

 ordinary dressing of " coarse" yard manure. 



IS THIS SO ^ 



** Prof. Kedzie, one of the most careful experimenters among scientific men, 

 professor of chemistry at the Michigan Agricultural College, * took a square 

 foot (of which there are 43,560 in an acre) of heavy June grass turf, and washed 

 awsiy all the soil m running water, and then weighed the grass roots and sur- 

 face grass, or the amount of green manurial matter usually contained in a 

 heavy greensward, and found it to be five pounds to the square foot, or at the 



