52 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



used freely ; so freely indeed that every acre of tillable land would be in 

 clover at least once in four years and in timothy as little as possible. 

 That is another very essential factor in the production of corn — grow 

 less timothy and more clover on your land and in your rotation. 



Commercial Fertilizers. — It is very doubtful whether or not you 

 can afford a commercial fertilizer on the rich black prairie soil of North- 

 ern and Western Missouri. There are other soils, however, naturally 

 thinner, but which produce a good deal of corn, and which, after corn 

 is grown once in two or three years, are left considerably impoverished ; 

 and on which, in the absence of a liberal application of barnyard manure, 

 an application of commercial fertilizer might yield a good profit. This 

 does not mean, necessarily, that the increased yield in the corn crop the 

 first year would pay the fertilizer bill and leave a profit ; but that before 

 the four or five-year rotation has ended the increased yield of corn, 

 wheat, clover and grass might pay a very good profit on the amount 

 invested in commercial fertilizers. As to just what sort of fertilizer to 

 use, of course, it will depend much upon your soil and its previous treat- 

 ment, but I believe a reasonable quantity of phosphorus in some cheap 

 form, like finely ground rock and perhaps a small quantity of potash, will 

 pay a profit, provided you will use plenty of clover or barnyard manure, 

 or both, in order to furnish humus to the soil and to supply the nitrogen. 



Preparation of the Land — As regards fall and spring plowing, it has 

 been found, as the result of experiments conducted here, and elsewhere, 

 that there is little difference, and that this difference varies so much 

 from season to season, that we may safely say the difference is not so 

 large as the seasonal difference, and that it is more a matter of con- 

 venience with the farmer than it is a matter of good or bad policy, pro- 

 vided the land is not rolling enough so that there will be serious loss 

 from washing. In that case, I would not plow in the fall. I should 

 plow late, so as to prevent the soil from running together, and if the land 

 is thin and shallow I would plow deeper in the fall than I would dare 

 to plow in the spring. That is, by throwing up some of the unweathered 

 soil in the fall to be acted upon during the winter you are really ac- 

 complishing one of the main beneficial results of plowing. As to depth 

 of plowing, that depends upon the soil. In the spring, as I have just in- 

 dicated, somewhat shallower plowing should be done than in the fall. 

 We started out a good many years ago with the idea that we should 

 plow deep, and Horace Greeley wrote a book on agriculture, which he 

 dedicated to the man who would invent a plow that would turn the soil 

 to a depth of three feet and cover twenty acres a day. I do not think 

 anyone has yet claimed the dedicatory honors of that book ; and we have 



