RED CLOVER 131 
were abandoned because they would no longer grow 
clover and the owners did not seem to know that there 
were other plants and methods that would restore their 
lands. Let the author quote what was said by a Gov- 
ernment expert about one of these Volusia farms. 
“In 1883 this farm produced clover hay at the rate 
of 2% tons per acre for the first cutting, and clover seed 
from the second growth at the rate of four bushels per 
acre; nearly $700 worth of grain was produced and sold, 
and three cows, twenty sheep, and a team kept. The 
total yield of all crops for each of the past five seasons 
grown on this farm would not support more than twenty 
sheep and nothing was sold. No clover is grown, and 
it cannot be grown by the methods now in practice.” 
He further said of these Volusia farms, that when 
they were first cleared they brought forth large crop 
yields of all the staple grains. That there was no difii- 
culty in growing red clover, and that the region was well 
populated and the farms were prosperous. 
Another expert says of these soils, “that the failure 
of clover to grow on them is not due to any fungous 
disease of the clover plant, nor to the lack of the proper 
kind of bacteria in the soil, or to other influences of such 
a character, and that a chemical analysis of the soil by 
standard methods shows a sufficient amount of the com- 
mon plant-food elements for successful crop growth.” 
Upon these soils where clover refuses to grow, other 
crops refuse to grow as well, and farms are being aban- 
doned, buildings are going to decay and ruin. 
Some of these same conditions to a considerable extent 
abound in every region where clover is grown. Then 
