FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 491 



W. A. Crowley of Ida county, Iowa, had sixty acres of clover from which 

 he cut more than two tons of hay per acre. Then he cut a seed crop the 

 same year, of three bushels per acre. Mr. Crowley told me the hay was 

 sufificient to pay the rent on the land at two dollars and fifty cents per acre 

 and all expenses of harvesting hay and seed crop as well as expense of 

 threshing seed . He sold the seed for five dollars per bushel or fifteen dollars 

 per acre, which was profit. 



The following year they planted this land to corn. The yield was over 

 sixty bushels per acre while corn on the same farm on land that never was 

 clovere^, but otherwise equally as good, produced fifty bushels per acre. 



In 1891 I bought one hundred and sixty acres of land in Cherokee county, 

 it was an old blue grass pasture. It had been used for pasture from the 

 earliest settlement of the county, and had never been plowed. I broke it up 

 and raised flax the first year, sowed wheat the second year. In one field of 

 thirty acres I sowed twelve acres to clover. The next year I cut one crop of 

 hay. The second crop went to seed and I pastured it off. Did the same 

 the following year, then plowed it and planted corn. During this time the 

 remainder of the field had grown one crop of wheat, one crop of corn and 

 one of oats. The following year I planted the whole field to corn which 

 made the sixth crop since it was broken. The clover had been on the north 

 end of the field. I planted north and south and cultivated all alike. When 

 I husked the corn I found the corn where the clover had grown would make 

 ten bushels per acre more than the rest of the field. Ears were larger and 

 better developed. The whole field averaged sixty-five bushels. This would 

 indicate that even new land, naturally rich is benefited by growing clover. 



I bought the farm where 1 now reside and planted my first crop in 1902. 

 There was one field of thirty acres which I sowed to oats; half of it I sowed 

 to clover in 1903. I cut two crops of hay, then plowed in November and 

 planted the whole field of thirty acres to corn in 1904. The corn on the 

 clover sod was easier to cultivate, was cleaner of weeds, and produced more 

 than twice as much corn as the other half of the field. This land had been 

 farmed for over thirty years without ever having grown any clover. 



In order to preserve the fertility of the soil we must feed all our grain, 

 hay, straw, and fodder on the farm and haul out all the manure as fast as 

 made and spread on the land. 



With land at present prices and a prospect that it will reach still higher value 

 we can not hope to realize a reasonable interest on our investment in land by 

 feeding our crops to scrub stock. We should not try to see how many head 

 of stock we can keep on each farm and not starve any of them to death. We 

 should breed the best stock possible to grow on our land and keep them 

 growing till ready to sell. The aim should not be to produce the greatest 

 number of stock, but the greatest number of dollars' worth. We are short 

 on good beef cattle and good draft horses, both of which we should be able 

 to produce at a profit if we breed right and feed right, and while growing 

 stock that will make a profit we can preserve or increase the fertility of the 

 soil. 



