LIVE STOCK breeders' ASSOCIATION. 21/ 



am confident that leaving the meadows down too long is a source of 

 loss of millions of dollars to the farmers of the middle west. The hay- 

 crop of this country is the second crop in value — we had some 

 $070,000,000 worth this past year; but the loss from leaving meadows 

 down and letting them get weedy and the stand get poor costs an 

 enormous amount. A word about the value of timothy hay : A good 

 many people talk against timothy, and if I could not grow clover with 

 it I would not want to grow timothy to feed cattle ; but timothy is 

 good feed for horses. There is no equal for it for livery stable horses 

 that are liable to be driven to the limit of endurance just after a full 

 feed, although it is not as nutritious as some other feeds. 



I never let a crop of timothy and clover stay down on my farm 

 more than two years. I cannot afford to let my land produce one ton of hay 

 to the acre — neither can you. The average yield of timothy and clover 

 hay in America is i.i tons per acre. There is not a farmer in this country 

 who can afford to grow a crop of hay that small, and half of them 

 grow crops smaller than that. By using a proper rotation of crops, and 

 leaving hay down only two years, feeding everything grown on the 

 place, and putting the manure back on the land, you can produce 

 twice that much regularly. That is one of the great mistakes in the 

 management of farms in the middle west. Don't leave your meadows 

 down — I will put it this way — don't leave your timothy and clover m.ead- 

 ows down over two years. 



There is another suggestion I want to make. There is a better 

 way of sowing timothy and clover than is generally practiced, which 

 IS used by some of the very best farmers I have ever seen. The common 

 method is to sow timothy with the wheat in the fall and put clover on 

 that in the spring. You all know that as far west as Missouri yo i 

 frequently lose your clover from sowing it that way. Now, while it 

 is not always practicable to do any other way, I want to tell you another 

 way that gives a surer stand and grows a little more to the acre. It is 

 the way I did on my own farm the last time with good results. Im- 

 mediately after taking off the grain crop — wheat or oats, or whatever 

 crop it is — plough the land ; then summer-fallow it — harrow it each 

 week until along the latter part of August. Then I sow timothy and 

 clover together; the next year, if conditions are good', you will get a 

 full crop of hay. You are more sure, if you follow that method, to 

 get a good stand. It costs a good deal to put the timothy and clover 

 in that way, so I put them in the old way, but after wheat or oat harve:>t, 

 if the stand is not satisfactory, I plow again and use the method above 

 outlined and have had good results. I know many farmers who have 

 practiced sowing timothy and clover together after summer fallowing 



