LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 417 



rye for fall and spring pasture ? Who has tried it? tell us your experience. 

 Will we not all agree that the more vegetable matter we can get into our 

 soil the better? Why? Not to make it loose — it is already loose enough. 

 Then why this food of humus? Simply to make it rich, productive, grow 

 large crops. We all know that our land, practically, is productive or 

 barren, just about in proportion as it contains vegetable matter. But will 

 it not be in this part of Michigan, as in all others, and hereafter as it has 

 been heretofore? That is, those who work into their lands most green crops, 

 especially clover, and those whq most carefully husband all the good, old- 

 fashioned barn-yard manure they can make and most judiciously apply it, 

 will grow the biggest crops and make the most money. We must give and 

 take with the soil. If our crops extract nourishment from the soil, we must 

 replenish it with the food elements extracted from it; otherwise future 

 crops will suffer for want of food, and consequently diminish and ultimately 

 entirely fail. When we cease to let our hens and turkeys roost on the fence 

 and in the tops of fruit and shade trees, stop the rain from our barn roof 

 drenching the manure pile, quit emptying the ash pail in front of the par- 

 lor door, don't put those bones in the stove and burn them, and learn that 

 all decomposition is wasted to the farm unless some plant or absorbent is 

 on the spot to drink up the gases, then it may be time to talk of guanos 

 and superphosphates. 



Mr. Watt: I think Mr. Terry's idea of keeping stock in box stalls, on 

 their own manure, is not good for the animals. 



Cropping, of itself, does not fertilize, but cultivation while cropping is 

 necessary, and with corn should be continued till the ear is glazed. 



Mr. Spaulding : I object to sowing a peck of clover seed per acre ; we can't 

 afford it. One pound of clover seed has so many seeds that at four quarts 

 per acre 151 seeds would fall on every square foot, and two quarts will make 

 a fine crop. 



Mr. Friend : I have sown four, six and eight quarts, and now always sow 

 eight. My farm is clay. When the land was new I found four quarts enough. 



As to having stock tread their manure, I find the best results to give abun- 

 dance of straw and leave the manure till spring. 



Mr. Spaulding: My soil is heavy clay loam. I have sown three and four 

 pecks of wheat per acre, and think four more than necessary. 



I sow ten pounds clover seed per acre. 



Mr. Friend: The theory of little seed is good, but in practice more is useful. 



Mr. Carter: If I wanted to follow corn with oats, I would manure the sod 

 before plowing for the corn. 



As to clover seed, a rich, strong soil needs less seed than a lighter soil. 



Mr. Watt: Manure should be hauled to the field and spread when hauled 

 in the winter. 



Mr. Morgan : Manure for wheat should be worked in on top after the plow- 

 ing, and be spread as hauled and not dumped in piles. 



Mr. Johnson : In Western New York, one spring, clover seed was high and 

 a neighbor sowed eight quarts of seed on 16 acres, with splendid success. 



Prof. Johnson: As to the cultivation of soil 100 years ago, Jethro Tull 

 experimented thoroughly on the value of culture alone, and maintained that 

 he could do without manure, but nevertheless his wheat grew less and less 

 year by year in spite of his efforts. 



Last year I saw Terry's farm, and found him a sensible, practicable, level- 



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