Farmers' Week in Agricultural College. 157 



aut supply of liumus and vegetable material incorporated in tlie soil. 

 It is not the intention to advise this method of applying straw to wheat 

 ground as a general practice, but merely to call attention to the wonder- 

 ful effect it has had and to bring out the fact that to grow clover on 

 such soils it is necessary to do something for it that will enliven it, 

 cover more seed, prevent baking and cracking, and conserve the 

 moisture. It might be well to add, also, that it suggests a much better 

 means of disposing of straw and stalks than burning or selling them on 

 the market, and it ought to give the average farmer a glimpse of the 

 extreme value of the accumulation of any vegetable matter, such as straw, 

 stalks, trash or leaves, especially on the surface of the soil, in connec- 

 tion with getting a stand of clover. 



It would seem very probable from this that a condition might arise 

 wherein the extreme lack of humus and organic matter is the principal 

 and perhaps the only element of failure with the clover crop. How 

 prevalent this condition is, investigations have not been carried far 

 enough to say. But farmers, in limestone regions especially, may well 

 consider the humus problem as one of their important factors in clover 

 growing. The extremely unfavorable condition for young clover on a 

 hard, compact, run-down soil is something that can not easily be over- 

 estimated. The tendency has been in the past to ignore the great value 

 of humus and organic matter in the production of profitable crops of 

 any kind, and it is very probable that the increasing amount of clover 

 failures on soils that have been farmed for a great many years is due 

 to the gradual but certain exhaustion of humus and vegetable material, 

 which constitutes one of the greatest factors of the soils' physical 

 make-up. 



The adoption of better methods of farming and of rotations con- 

 taining special features for supplying to the soil an abundance of 

 humus-forming material would doubtless soon put an end to much of 

 the failure with clover in a corn and wheat rotation over a large part 

 of the section where such failures now occur. This, together with better 

 and more careful methods of seeding, and a better preparation of the 

 surface of the soil, which has already been discussed, seems especially 

 advisable. The seed must be covered by one means or another, and the 

 surface of the soil should be either thoroughly pulverized or have an 

 abundance of humus or a temporary substitute for humus in the form 

 of a rnulch or covering on the surface. Unless these conditions are sup- 

 plied the young clover plants can not get a footliold and maintain 

 themselves in their earlier stages of growth. If the surface of the soil 

 is too hard and dries out too readily the young clover nearly all dies 



