362 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



nor could I raise corn. I tried five years on eighty acres, with a team and 

 sixteen head of cattle, and had to give it up. I could raise rye but my 

 stock and pocketbook found it too poor picking. Timothy did better than 

 clover. 



Mr. Eose: As to this insect. I sowed clover in May like oats and only 

 looked at it on Sundays, and between two Sundays, on a strip four to six 

 feet wide, next to wild land, the clover was so much gone that I made up 

 my mind I had skipped it in seeding. The same day, with a magnifier, I 

 saw little black insects that hopped like a flea and seemed to have no wings, 

 but to be hard shelled, and that ate off the clover. I mixed five pounds 

 Paris green with plaster, and sowed it and stopped the mischief right then. 



Mr. Wayne, of Eoscommon : I have sowed clover successfully in spring 

 and in fall. Clover has been worthless this year. It grew up four inches 

 and turned yellow. I supposed it was the drought but examining some 

 found the yellow stalks hollow at the top for an inch or two. Last year I 

 had 22 acres of clover, and only got only two and one-half tons. Part I did 

 not try to cut at all. 



Once on four acres I got 16 loads first cutting, and four loads the fall cut- 

 ting. I use June clover. 



I sowed Orchard grass, Eye grass, Tall Oat grass and clover mixed, and it 

 looks well. The Eye grass killed out, but the rest did well. 



Last September 17 I sowed three bushels per acre of Orchard grass, and it 

 looks well. 



Question: What is Mr. Shafer's land? 



Mr. Shafer: Five or six acres go one and one-half feet deep to a hard pan 

 that goes three or four feet to light sand. On other spots, perhaps not half 

 a rod distant from the above, I can strike the spade down its full length and 

 strike no obstacle. I see no difference in yield between the two spots. 



A neighbor has a piece that had been cropped four years and failed to 

 grow corn, and this summer, on that, by cultivating, he got a good clover 

 catch. 



I think rolling does less good than cultivating. I don't think it pays. 



The morning glory roots fill our soil, and if not killed out by cultivating 

 it will kill out any crop. 



Mr. Jacob Steckert : I had 40 acres in clover and timothy two years ago. 

 I sow in the fall and have no trouble. In the spring I am liable to loss 

 from drought. I have cut from one to two tons per acre. I sow one-third 

 timothy and two-thirds clover ; one peck per acre. My land is somewhat 

 stony. I think very well of rolling land. 



My son had a light, sandy piece, and I sowed five acres of barley and -five 

 acres of oats and 150 pounds of phosphate, and got 20 bushels per acre of oats 

 and 15 bushels of barley. Phosphate costs $34 per ton, by car load, and I 

 think it pays to use it. My land is improving in quality. I bought only 

 one car load of phosphate and sold part of that, but I use a good deal of 

 barn-yard manure, 700 loads brought from Eoscommon stables for 95 acres. 

 Even without manure, with good culture, the land gradually becomes firmer 

 and better. 



President Willits : Can you better your land without stable or commercial 

 fertilizers? 



Mr. Steckert : Yes, by green manuring. The commercial fertilizer is used 

 up the first year in a wet season, but not in a dry season. 



