FIFTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X 683 



successful. In some cases this has been because their localities have 

 been wetter than the rest of the corn belt. In other cases it is because 

 the soil is sweet, well stocked with humus, and handled just right. 



A north central Illinois correspondent presents a typical problem as 

 follows: 



"I wish to know how to get better results in seeding down land. I 

 own 120 acres, which is in a good part of the corn belt. This land is 

 gently rolling, the good and poor land being in irregular patches, caused 

 by draws and ravines making some parts steeper than others. There 

 are about twenty acres of bottom and about sixty of good upland, be- 

 sides forty acres of hillside steep enough to sheet wash during hard 

 rains. I bought this land five years ago. For seven years previously 

 it had been rented to nearby neighbors, no one being on the premises, 

 and consequently the place was entirely without live stock. There was 

 also no grass, and the hillside land had become too thin to raise more 

 than twenty or twenty-five bushels of grain per acre. The bottom land 

 was good, and the level upland was fair. I fenced the place in twenty- 

 acre fields and planned the following rotation: Sixty acres were always 

 to be in grass, forty acres in pasture, twenty acres in meadow, forty 

 acres in corn, and twenty acres in oats in which grass seed was to be 

 sown each year. This would give me twenty acres of sod corn, twenty 

 acres of second-year corn, and twenty acres of oats. I have noticed that 

 nearby farmers have followed this rotation with very good results. They 

 have been able to keep enough live stock to eat all the roughage and 

 most of the grain also. In 1910, I sowed twenty acres to red clover and 

 timothy. It came up fairly well, but it was so dry that year in June 

 that all but about five acres died. I still have this five acres in meadow, 

 but the plants are short and slender, and it usually makes just about 

 one load of hay per acre. The year 1910 was a poor one for grass in 

 this locality, and many fields failed. In 1911, I sowed twenty acres of 

 red clover and timothy, but the season was very hot and dry, and all 

 plants were dead by July 1st. The seeding in this locality was an entire 

 failure even on bottom land. In 1912, I seeded twenty-five acres of 

 timothy and alsike clover. This was a good season for grass, and I 

 got a good stand except on a thin slope. The alsike is now gone, but 

 the timothy remains good. The season of 1912 was generally favorable 

 for getting a grass stand in this country. In 1913 I seeded ten acres 

 of red and alsike clover and timothy on fall plowing. This proved an 

 entire failure. I seeded twenty acres of the same mixture in corn 

 stalks, with oats, and secured a poor stand on the hills and a fairly 

 good stand of timothy and alsike on the level spots. The red clover died 

 during the summer. The season of 1913 was hot and dry, but a generally 

 fair stand of clover was obtained in this locality. In 1914, I sowed 

 twenty acres to red clover, alsike clover and timothy. The red clover 

 is dead, the alsike is going, and the timothy is holding on. The season 

 has been hot and dry. You see that I have had but one satisfactory 

 stand in five years, and that contained no red clover. As far as I am 

 able to judge, the soil is acid. The litmus paper test indicates it at 

 any rate. Sorrel and moss are found nearly everywhere on the hills. 

 I plowed up a five year pasture last spring that had grown little but 



