LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 415 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Smith: I have not spoken of the benefit in green manuring of shad- 

 ing the land. 



Dr. Beal : I consider this last point an excellent one. 



Prest. Willits: Is Mr. Smith's land sandy? 



Mr. Smith: One-half of it is, and when I went on I could hardly raise 

 white beans. Three years after, by plowing in rye, I got 26 bushels of 

 wheat per acre. 



Prest. Willits : This is a point of great interest to us in connection with 

 the experiments of the College at Grayling, in the treatment of the light 

 pine lands. 



Mr. Martin : After you get that land in clover, let it stay in clover some 

 time, three or four or five years ; then plow and you have it much bettered. 

 Don't pasture. In cutting the clover, cut only one crop of hay each year 

 and let the second growth go back to the land. 



Dr. Beal: When animals eat rye or clover they don't take more than 20 

 per cent of the substance, and the remainder should be utilized as barn-yard 

 manure. 



Mr. Warren : I agree as to leaving light soil seeded down some time, but 

 I would feed straw and top dress the clover with barn-yard manure. 



Mr. Burnett: As to shading land. I have a light soil and planted corn 

 three and one-half feet apart and got nothing. Last summer I planted four 

 and one-half feet apart, kept it stirred and let in the sun and got 75 

 bushels per acre. 



Mr. Ladnor : As to that, I had a field of wheat of which one-half had 

 been in peas and the other half in summer fallow, and the pea land yielded 

 as well as the fallowed land. 



Mr. : On my soil clover does not hold good longer than two years. 



I had a crop of rye, some of which was eight feet high. 



Mr. Smith : I want every farmer who has not tried green manuring to try 

 it, and if you once try it you will never abandon it. You can by means of 

 it sell your crops and keep up your land. 



Mr. : I grew my last crop of potatoes following rye plowed under. 



As to keeping land in clover, it will often not stay but run out. 



Dr. Beal : Clover is a biennial plant and will not follow itself unless it 

 seeds. 



HOW SHALL I KEEP UP THE FERTILITY OF MY FARM? 



BY MR. HENRY STINCHCOMB. 



Read at the Farmers' Institute, at Lake Odessa, Feb. 11, 1889. 



Man, while in this life, is a success in proportion as he has a practical 

 knowledge of the business in which he is engaged. If a physician, it is a 

 knowledge of the science of medicine and of the human system. If an attor- 

 ney, a knowledge of law. 



Bread and clothing are our first wants — will be our last — hence the need 

 of a thorough knowledge that we can use, along the line in which we are 

 engaged, to aid us in honorably accumulating all the dollars we can, by obey- 



