THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 275 



what the alsike and white clover may be doing, but if it is a short bumble- 

 bee year you need not expect any clover seed unless it is visited by these 

 larger varieties of the common honey bee. 



Again, we have never been able to secure a bumper crop of seed from 

 mammoth clover when sown on rich bottom land, nor for that matter, 

 of the common red, for the reason that a very great luxuriance of stalk 

 prevents the proper seed development. ,Even on uplands we have often 

 found that the thinner spots where there was a short growth of the com- 

 mon red clover produced not only the most seed but the best seed. 



Where a man grows either variety for fertility he should plow under 

 the second year; that is, if he sows his seed in the spring of 1903 and gets 

 a good stand and cuts it for hay or for seed in 1904, then he should plow li 

 up in the fall of 1904 or early in the spring of 1905 and harvest his crop 

 of nitrogen. As stated in the paper a week or so ago, it will pay him to 

 plow the spring sowing under late in the fall or early the next spring. It 

 will pay him better if he can let it stand a year longer and get a full crop 

 of nitrogen, for it must be borne in mind that one of the great reasons 

 why we grow clover is to store the soil with nitrogen sufficient for two 

 good corn crops. He will get a good crop of nitrogen with a good stand of 

 clover during the one summer but a better crop if he will let it stand two; 

 then, however, it should be plowed up if fertility is the main thing he is 

 after. 



We expect to make an experiment next year of which our readers 

 shall have the full report whether it be a success or failure. We regard 

 our failures on our own farms as quite as valuable to our readers as our 

 successes, however they may be on us. We sowed this spring on 

 some drained bottom land with winter wheat and have secured a most 

 elegant stand. We will plow this under in the spring and put in corn, 

 which we expect to follow with winter wheat provided we can get the corn 

 cut in time, then seed this down to clover again, thus making a two crop 

 rotation. We would not do this on thin uplands and we do not ask our 

 readers to follow our example until they find out the result. We regard 

 our own farms as in a certain sense experiment stations carried on in 

 farmer-like fashion in order that we may test our theories under ordinary 

 farm conditions. 



SPRING GRAIN AND A CATCH OF CLOVER. 



Homestead. 

 At this season of the year there is always more or less activity among 

 farmers to ascertain which is the best way to get a catch of clover when 

 sown with small grain. The older some farmers get the less faith they 

 have in some of their own methods and the older a country grows th© 

 more attention is being paid to a clover crop. Of late years there have 

 been many failures to get a good stand of clover and there is always inter- 



