18 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



weeks before planting, that the soil may be saturated with the fertilizing properties at the 

 time of planting. This practice favors quick starting in growth, the roots being fed with the 

 manure that is constantly being diffused through the soil. Sandy soils being warmer and 

 more dry than others, favoring, as we have previously stated, early working, which not only 

 gives an early start to the crops, but furnishes them with the winter moisture therein con 

 tained, and enables them to secure a good hold upon the soil before the dry season sets in, 

 and thus many of the bad effects of drouth may be in a measure avoided. Where the season 

 is unusually wet, much of the fertilizing element of the manure will be washed out of the 

 soil and wasted, but where dry weather is more prevalent than wet, the above practice will 

 give the best of results. 



Leachy soils generally must have frequent and light applications of manure, as they will 

 not retain, like clay, the wealth of soil till the following year ; they will only hold it long 

 enough for the growing vegetation during the season, the remainder passing through the 

 light soil, and is lost. Where there is a considerable amount of clay mingled with the soil, 

 the effect of retaining will be varied proportionately. Clover is exceedingly beneficial in 

 increasing the productiveness of poor, sandy soils that are capable of producing but very light 

 crops. We give the following method from the pen of a farmer whose land at the time of 

 his purchasing it was of such poor, sandy quality as to be considered almost worthless for 

 agricultural purposes. 



&quot;Clover is my main dependence for keeping up and increasing the productiveness of my 

 lands. The entire tract (300 acres) is now all under cultivation, and the annual yield to the 

 acre of wheat, rye, corn, and clover hay will average with the best land, in Wisconsin or 

 Iowa, which has been the same number of years under cultivation. My favorite plan is to 

 have one field each of clover, corn, and wheat every year. This makes a three-year rotation. 

 The first crop of clover is cut for hay in June. The second crop is allowed to go to seed, 

 and plowed in late in the fall ; in the following spring it is planted with corn ; the next spring 

 sown with wheat, and the land will be found to be abundantly seeded to clover. The clover 

 is dressed with one hundred pounds of land plaster to the acre. The manure made on the 

 farm is spread where most needed. 



It is sometimes desirable to let the land remain in clover for a longer period. My 

 experience is that clover, being a biennial plant, will winter -kill the third winter after sowing, 

 but leaves behind a great mass of roots that wonderfully enrich the soil. Land laid down 

 with clover is better than money in bank, drawing more interest than any bank can pay and 

 compounding the interest oftener. 



Boussingault took a portion of pure sand, burned it until all traces of organic matter 

 were expelled, then took up some growing clover plants, washed them clean, removed the 

 external moisture with blotting paper, weighed them, and set them in the sand. He then 

 watered them with distilled water, placed them in the air, and in two months time found 

 that they had tripled their amount of organic matter thus proving that air, pure water, and 

 sand have all the elements necessary to sustain the growth of clover. In rich soil the 

 results would doubtless have been increased, but we see in this little experiment the elements 

 of all successful agriculture. Had he buried the perfected plant in his sand, and planted 

 again, and continued the process, it is evident that there would be no end to the amount of 

 fertility which might be accumulated, and this would not be in an arithmetical, but in a 

 geometrical ratio, for the presence of manure in the soil would make it easier to accumulate 

 still more from the atmosphere. 



Early in the month of September I plowed a field of forty-three acres of well-worn 

 land, from which a crop of rye had been harvested the preceding July, and sowed it again 

 with rye. In November, cattle and horses were permitted to run on it, and continued to do 

 so until March no snow covering the ground. Early in May the rye averaged nearly three 



