FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 195 



to how we raised clover in Michigan. The insect had been there, had 

 done his work, and was beginning to go away, and I believe he will leave 

 us. 



In forty years of seeding clover, I have never lost a crop until this last 

 year. I have seeded with other crops and without. I lost outright last 

 year thirty acres, and saved fifty-seven. One thing I found an absolute 

 protection to the effects of drouth, and that is to cover the soil with a 

 thin coat of manure. That is, where sowed with wheat. I make a great 

 deal of manure, make it at a loss sometimes, so far as the results of the 

 feeding, but I don't believe we need to be thoroughly discouraged. Try 

 other experiments. Rye is worth something. There is force in the sug- 

 gestion of the professor that we try sowing the clover without sowing the 

 grain. 



Q: Did I understand you to say that alfalfa would not do well on 

 heavy clay soil? 



Mr. Luce: With a solid heavy subsoil, I don't believe it will. In 

 California the roots grow large and long, and I know of no reason why it 

 should not be a good fertilizer if you can make it grow. At one of these 

 institutes, a man said he could not get rid of the roots. They were like 

 the old fashioned oak grub roots, but whether there is any danger of that 

 occurring, I don't know; I should not be afraid of it on my farm. I 

 have a slaty subsoil ; and I have no faith, from wathching the growth of 

 alfalfa in California and Utah, that it will do anything on my farm. 

 Mine is a gravelly loam, tinctured with lime, and below is a slaty subsoil. 



Q: Is it a success to sow clover seed on rye? 



Mr. Luce: Yes, sir; rye is better than wheat, take it altogether, and 

 if you can cut the rye early for hay, you will get a good crop. If you 

 let it ripen, it may kill out the seeding. 



Q: Does the insect affect the mammoth clover like the common red? 



Mr. Luce: Just the same. 



Mr. Morrill : The clover root borer has entirely missed me this last 

 year. For the last four or five years it destroyed my crop entirely. Per- 

 haps it starved itself out. 



Mr. Brown: For three years we have tried sowing clover without 

 a nurse crop. Two years ago, in a sixteen acre com field, we sowed our 

 timothy in the fall, and sowed the wheat between the rows of com shocks. 

 Early in March, we sowed clover seed on a honeycombed surface, and the 

 next fall, when the wheat was cut off, you could look across that field 

 and tell where every com shock has been. On those spots, there was a 

 nice growth of clover. Sow a little timothy seed in September, and the 

 next spring sow your clover seed. Let the wheat grow. I think you can 

 get a good crop of wheat. The root borer has bothered us frequently; I 

 think this eternally hanging on to a good thing has had something to do 

 with these pests. I think if we would turn it under once in a while, we 

 could get rid of them. 



