AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



725 



tility we can get in our land from clover 

 growing systematically. There is not 

 enough attention paid to the systematic 

 rotation of growing crops, and so we are 

 trying to urge this rotation of crop- 

 growing so as to bring in this clover 

 crop once in three or five years. We 

 want to bring that in, in order that we 

 may bring in the crop that brings in 

 money, so that the land will grow more 

 bushels to the acre, and grow it cheaper. 

 Now, if I was talking to an audience of 



Vice-President L. D. Stilson. 



farmers, I would tell that we can grow 

 more tons of hay where it is grown in 

 rotation, and it is a fact. We can grow 

 about }i more hay in rotation, and it is 

 worth more. Do you not think that any 

 man who is told these things, and can 

 see them for himself, would not go into 

 the systematic growing of clover ? 



An important point in this connection 

 is, where does the clover get this excess 

 of fertility ? From the air and from the 

 subsoil. It gets the nitrogen from the 

 air, and the farmers by following the 

 systematic rotation of growing clover 

 can get from the air all the nitrogen 

 they need for practical purposes as long 

 as time lasts. It is only within a short 

 time that we have been able to prove 

 this. The clever gets the nitrogen from 

 the air, and minerals from the subsoil. 

 It has been proved by science that the 

 clover can get the minerals from the soil 



below, and store it in the soil above. 

 That is why we call it a renovating crop. 

 We are trying to urge the farmers to 

 grow clover and not timothy. It will 

 yield about }^, more of a crop than 

 timothy, and is worth about }i more. 



I want to give you a little experience 

 right on this line to illustrate this point 

 — not to brag about what I have done, 

 but to show you what I have been 

 preaching can be carried out in practice. 

 Eight by the side of one of our best fields 

 is a piece of land belonging to a neigh- 

 bor. Originally it belonged to our farm. 

 It was cleared at the same time, and all 

 belonged to one man. The character of 

 the soil is identical — the same in both 

 fields. My neighbor has been farming 

 on this land for 25 years, but somewhat 

 differently from what we have on ours. 

 The rotation practiced is the same in 

 both cases, with the single exception 

 that for the past quarter of a century 

 my neighbor has grown timothy in place 

 of clover, while we have grown clover. 

 Timothy feeds on the soil, and is not 

 what might be called a renovating crop. 

 Every ounce taken out makes the soil so 

 much poorer, while clover makes it 

 richer. I said that our rotations were 

 the same— ours, clover, potatoes and 

 wheat, while his was timothy, potatoes 

 and wheat. We have been growing this 

 for a good many years. This year both 

 of us put wheat in the fields. Last sea- 

 son we both had potatoes. The year be- 

 fore that we had clover on our field 

 while our neighbor had timothy. The 

 neighbor had timothy with a little clover 

 scattered through it. This was in 1892. 

 We cut the first crop of hay, and we 

 certainly had as many pounds as our 

 neighbor. The second crop of clover 

 grown that season we allowed to go back 

 to the land. It was broken down on the 

 surface to lie there and shade the ground 

 and furnish a honey crop. Our neigh- 

 bor had no second crop to amount to 

 anything. Timothy does not give a sec- 

 ond crop. We had no manure or ferti- 

 lizer, only the clover roots and tops, and 

 that cost us nothing. We had as much 

 hay as our neighbor. Our neighbor put 

 on a heavy coat of manure. 



There was a little rivalry between us, 

 and when I got home in the spring and 

 saw the amount of manure he had put 

 on, my heart sunk away down. He never 

 had beaten us in 25 years, and I did not 

 want him to. We both put in potatoes, 

 beginning to plant the same day by 

 mutual consent, and they were both put 

 in by machinery. There was no differ- 

 ence in it at all except in the fertiliza- 

 tion of the land. When it came digging 



