714 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
land will give you the better return, especially to the man of moderate 
means who has to carry a mortgage of from 50 to 60 per cent of the 
original investment. As a rule one acre of the first class land will not 
beat two acres of the second grade, either in blue grass, clover or corn, 
provided always, 1st, he will market the finished product, viz., horses, 
cattle, hogs, etc. 2d. Accumulate, husband and use all fertilizer on the 
farm. 3d. Sow generously red clover seed wherever he can, with the 
oats, with the barley, with the wheat, and even in the corn after the 
last plowing of the corn, crossing the same with cultivator w^ith harrow 
attachment if desired to leave for meadow the next year. If this is not 
desirable sow just before the last plowing of the corn. If this be done 
you may get good results. Time would fail us, your patience exhausted, 
and the half would not be told of the possibilities, the mine of wealth 
within the reach of many, in the intelligent and generous use of red 
clover seed. 
Then sow clover seed. 
"Since the time we have to live 
In this world is so short let's strive 
To make our best advantage of it. 
And pay our losses with our profits." 
MAINTAINING THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF THE SOIL. 
W. B. GOULDING, BELLE PLAINE, IOWA. 
(Before Benton County Farmers' Institute.) 
The words, physical condition, as applied to the soil, relates to the 
structural condition or state of granulation or crumb structure of that 
upper stratum of the earth's surface commonly called soil. The science 
of soil physics does not inquire into the chemical composition of soils or 
into what amount of fertility they may contain, but is of great importance 
in teaching how that fertility may be made available to the growing crops. 
The soil chemists tell us that there is stored up in the average soil 
of this section enough fertility to last for many generations, but very little 
of this stored up fertility can, even under the best methods of soil man- 
agement, be made available at any one time. It is a well recognized fact 
that a rational system of soil management is the foundation of successful 
agriculture, and the real reason why some farmers make their calling a 
brilliant success while others make it a dismal failure and finally "fold 
their tents like the Arabs and quietly steal away" to start anew upon 
upon the virgin lands of the west, is found in the difference in their sys- 
tems of soil management. A great French writer once remarked that 
there is in the universe an all-wise providence whose eternal purposes 
embrace all accidents converting them to good, and if the farmer neglects 
to maintain his soil in a good physical condition he will soon arrive at the 
point where providence will no longer permit him too draw a subsistence 
from the stored-up fertility of the soil. 
