158 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



corn and then cut another slit by the side of the 

 first one which served to close the first one and to 

 cover the corn. Before and after the seed was 

 planted the ground was harrowed and re-harrowed 

 again and again but with little apparent effect 

 the sod was too tenacious. But I have yet to see 

 more roughage along with a few ears grown 

 per acre than grew on that marshy field, and it was 

 just what was needed for our many cattle after the 

 prairie grasses had dried up in the fall. 



Mrs. Ellen Tupper, the College lecturer on Bee 

 Culture, highly recommended Alsike or Swedish 

 clover, not only as a superb honey plant but as a 

 good forage plant, for low land. The flowers of 

 Alsike, like those of white clover, are so shallow 

 that honey bees can secure their sweets, while red 

 clover flowers are so deep that only bumblebees 

 can reach the honey they contain. This tough 

 ground was therefore re-plowed the following 

 spring and two bushels of imported Alsike clover 

 seed no seed could then be obtained in the 

 United States at a cost of thirty dollars per 

 bushel was sowed. I have no words to describe 

 the beauty and the perfume of that field of clover; 

 I have never since raised so good a crop of clover 

 of any kind. But I take little credit for it, for it 



