SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART I. 



flo'at in years gone by. You take it in a dry season, Mr. Presi- 

 dent and Members, and the float makes a dust coat. You know 

 we have very high winds in Iowa, and if it is dry, that surface 

 soil goes away in dust; and on account of that blowing dust, 

 which invariably raises in a dry spring, after the use of the float, 

 I have discarded it. 



I prefer also spring plowing for my sod. My reasons for it 

 are, I put in my sod corn later, it matures quicker, and it will 

 ripen from 8 to lo days earlier than that put in on ground already 

 kept in corn and small grain. My reason for plowing my sod 

 in the spring as late as I can is, that I want a growth of grass — 

 you are aware of the manurial value of grass, which is consider- 

 able ; then I disc thoroughly and do not plant until after the first 

 or tenth day of June. You almost invariably get a good stand 

 of corn if the seed is right, and the cut worn will not bother it 

 because it is too late in the season for that. 



Mr. Adair, of Bulter County: Mr. President, I should 

 have to antagonize the remarks of my brother concerning fall 

 and spring plowing of clover sod. I have been "monkeying" with 

 this clover business ever since Uncle Henry Wallace commenced 

 preaching the Gospel of Clover in Iowa in the Iowa Homestead,, 

 many years ago. My experience is that fall plowing is the thing 

 for sod. The way we do on our farm, is not to wait until the 

 first or tenth of June, but plant as early in May as the conditions 

 will -permit. We disc it in the spring. To give you results, 

 this last spring we had loo acres of clover ''od, — and we will 

 have the same next spring — we disced that over and finished it 

 on the 4th day of May, and after we had harrowed it, we had a 

 down-pour of rain, a very heavy rain-fall, and it run the ground 

 all together again, seemed to settle it down. We put the disc C'n 

 again and double disced it, that is, lapped it one-half, as Mr, 

 Atkinson spoke of. The result was, that corn yielded an average 

 of over 8o bushels per acre; and one acre of land I bought in 

 1899, for $35.00 an acre, produced the enormous crop of 117 

 bushels, and it was from seed corn that we had grown on the 

 place and in the neighborhood. 



Now, it is results that the farmers are after. Of course, we 

 have our different ideas ; but my observation has been that the cut 



