NINTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART XII 713 
land we have always obtained a full crop. That farm has paid the original 
cost, interest, taxes and for all improvements, viz.: Good fences, good 
sheds, etc., and has advanced in price $95.00 per acre; and to ''Common 
Red Clover'' the honor is due. We didn't do this by waiting until seed 
got cheaper. We didn't do this by counting the seeds. How I hate a 
stingy man! I once heard Robert G. Ingersoll say: "Young man, if you 
have but a dollar in the world — spend it like a lord." And I want to say 
to my farmer friends: If you have but ten dollars in the world, spend it 
for clover seed and sow it like a lord! 
Consider well the clovers. 1st. The old reliable "Common Red. This 
is tne standard. 2d. The Mammoth. 3d. The Alsyke. 
The white and the "Four Leafed" will take good care of themselves. 
"The time is here that determines whether a man is capable of becoming 
a true farmer with a happy home and family; independent, as only the 
farmer can be, or a 'soil robber,' with a heavy mortgage and bankruptcy 
staring him in the face." The King drag will not make a good road if 
left in the fence corner. Clover seed won't help you out if left in the 
granary or the sack. "It was not the intention of the Supreme Being that 
our fair State of Iowa should be doomed to sterility and barreness through 
the folly and parsimony of man. He has provided in the Common Red 
clover a sure means of restoring and conserving rich and abundant fertility 
to the soil of every farmer and stock grower who is willing to accept and 
use the means within the reach of every owner of a sterile farm" with a 
big mortgage attachment or of an humble tenant, who has a two to 
four year lease. 
Consider well the clovers. The pigs in clover is no longer a puzzle. If 
we had bought clover seed with the money expended for blue sky (of 
which Texas has a surplus), Bohemian oats, portable pantries and the 
many patented devices whose only real merit consisted in separating a 
man from his money, and had sown the seed intelligently and honestly we, 
today, would be a more prosperous people. 
When you buy clover seed buy it from a responsible and reputable 
dealer and pay him a fair and equitable price for it. If you do this, under 
the provisions of the pure food law, you are measurably protected against 
polluting your land with noxious weeds. Insist that you are getting a 
seed of at least 95 to 98 per cent germination. My experience in selling 
clover seed for more than thirty years has been that the old axiom which 
applies to almost every commodity is especially emphasized when applied 
to clover seed and that is: "The best is always the cheapest." 
This applies also to stock, the field and garden seeds. In many cases 
I firmly believe the man who buys a second class farm and first class 
clover seed, sowing generously, can show a better per cent of gain than 
the man who buys the high priced land and sows a little or no clover 
seed. In fact much of our soil ranking as second class lands selling in 
many cases from $50.00 to $65.00 per acre, are the best adapted to the 
growing of clover. Experience teaches that land that will grow a heavy 
crop of clover will produce a good crop of corn; true it may not repeat 
the corn crop as often without changing as the higher priced land, yet 
by careful figuring the per cent of profits on the investments the cheaper 
