ORGANIC MATTER 39 
the destruction of the clover. For it has been estimated 
that the potash, phosphoric acid and nitrogen in a ton 
of clover hay is worth $17.57 for manure. There was 
not less than a ton of clover hay on each acre of the 
forty-acre field, worth a total of $702.80 plowed under 
for manure. 
The farmer’s only excuse for burning was that the 
clover was so heavy that it could not be plowed under. 
This we dispute. The right kind of a double-disc plow 
would have turned it under nicely. Of course the plow 
would have occasionally choked up, and it would have 
taken longer to plow the field, but it would have been 
well worth the time and extra labor, for the farmer 
would have secured for this field a fertility that would 
have yielded him large returns. 
The same excuse that this farmer made for burning 
the clover, is made for burning corn stalks; that is, 
they cannot be plowed under so as not to interfere 
with the cultivation of corn and other crops. This we 
also dispute. We have turned under the rankest kind 
of growth of corn stalks that never were pastured, with 
an ordinary walking plow and log chain. Of course, 
some stalks were left sticking out of the ground and 
in the cultivation of crops an occasional hill of corn 
was jerked out of the ground by the cultivator catching 
on the stalks insufficiently plowed under, but what of 
that? The loss of a few hills of corn is nothing com- 
pared to the great loss of the stalks if destroyed by 
burning. 
An instance is given of two farmers owning farms 
side by side, one of whom always gathered up his corn 
