FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VIII. 547 



Be careful to get your oats well shocked, for about one year in everj' 

 five oats are badly damaged by rains while in the shock. 



About twenty-five years ago my father decided I was big enough to 

 help sow grass seed, and as there were few seeders at that time, the laboi- 

 cf seeding was considerable, and it was often necessary that two or 

 three work at seeding a field. From that time to this I have had a part 

 to take in seeding almost every spring. At that time the grass was 

 usually sown as the frost went out, while the ground was very soft, and 

 sown on winter wheat and rye. These crops are very good to seed with, 

 but as neither one is considered a profitable one in this part of Iowa, I 

 have sown my clover and timothy with oats for several years, and be- 

 lieve the early oats fully as good a crop to seed grass with as any I have 

 tried. I have also tried sowing oats with Manshury barley. 



I usually sow the clover seed after the disking is done, and cover 

 with the harrow. I think six pounds of clover and five nounds of timothy 

 seed to be about the right quantity to sow on an acre, or in other words, 

 a bushel of each to ten acres. While we might sometimes sow three 

 bushels of oats per acre and yet get a stand of grass, the grass would 

 have a much better chance if the oats were much thinner. 



The conditions favorable for clover to grow are, first, a good seed 

 bed, so that you can e:et the seed covered in moist earth but not too 

 deep; then a nuise crop to keep down the weeds, but not so heavy and 

 dense as to smother the clover. If it is not too dry and too hot at the 

 time the oats are cut, the clover will be all right. If clover, up to cut- 

 ting, has been shaded where the oats are very thick, it is spindling, and 

 in its most critical stage, so that by having the oats thintier the clover 

 plants will be strong and more vigorous and better able to stand the hot 

 July sun. 



CONSTRUCTION AND LOCATION OF FARM BUILDINGS. 



Chas. Lou, before the Saott County Farmers' Institute. 



The proper grouping of buildings, with a view of meeting the re- 

 quirements for horses, young cattle, milch cows, steers, hogs, sheep and 

 poultry, without interfering one with the other working without hitch 

 like a harmonious whole, with the least expenditure of time and labor 

 to a farmer, is a serious problem in these times of high-priced land 

 and labor, before which most farmers stagger. 



Owing to the difficult of properly locating farm buildings and yard? 

 for permanent and suitable use, we find as a consequence that there is 

 continual shifting and changing, an annual rearrangement to suit the 

 new demands. It is never just right. "We must fix this or that difficulty 

 next year." and so the work of change and reconstruction goes on from 

 year to year. 



We never fully realize that ideal condition of farm arrangement 

 which represents the largest amount of work done in the least time and 

 in the most agreeable way. 



