40 Third Annual Revout 



Did you ever notice how the roots of the red clover grow? 

 The big tap root grows down through the soil. There are about 

 as many little roots in an acre of clover as there are in grass, but 

 they are not in the same place ; the big root extends down 

 through the soil in the clover, and the little ones extend down 

 from it, — maybe three, six or eight feet; your wheat and oats 

 and timothy feed near the surface ; the clover feeds deep ; it can- 

 not feed in the surface soil much. It takes a good deal of potash 

 to grow clover. Where does clover get potash? Down deep 

 where the potatoes and corn cannot feed. It is pumped up to 

 the surface to make the crop ; clover has the ability to thus pump 

 it up. In a clay subsoil there is plenty of potash that is available. 

 Your wheat and corn can't go down after it any more than they 

 can get the nitrogen out of the air ; so you see how wonderfully 

 these crops help each other; drawing the nitrogen out of the air, 

 and pumping the mineral matter up and bringing them together 

 and making the soil rich to grow crops. There is fertility up 

 above and fertility down below, and we are getting it right along. 

 We made the land as rich as we needed it. There have been 

 hundreds of men from all over the Union during the last twenty- 

 five years come to our farm to see these things. Pretty soon 

 after we began to raise these crops, along in 1 88 1-2-3-4, there 

 were many. One day we had forty men come to our farm, s6 

 great was the excitement. They could hardly believe their own 

 eyes. Among others, Professor Roberts of Cornell came and 

 it made me glad when I saw him for I knew some of the things 

 he had said about the farming we were doing, ruining the soil 

 and all that. He wouldn't say much, but he went around and 

 looked at everything. I showed him the second crop of clover 

 above our knees as we walked through it; I then showed him 

 some land we had not touched. He asked a few questions and 

 went back home. I imagine he said something like this : "Terry 

 has been carrying on something we don't understand ; and there 

 is something in the idea after all." He commenced that experi- 

 ment in tillage at Ithaca, and has practically revolutionized tillage 

 in New York. Professor Roberts took samples of soil from all 

 over the state from average farms, and this is what an analysis 

 showed : 



4500 pounds Nitrogen. 



6300 pounds Phosphoric acid. 



24,000 pounds Potash. 



Well now, with all this fertility in the soil, what are we 

 buying fertilizers for? 



I went to the first institute in Wisconsin they ever held there. 

 I was telling them what I believed to be true about the clover 

 business. I sat down beside Professor Henry — he and Professor 



