248 Practical Farming 



condition in which the bacteria which enable the clover 

 to get nitrogen from the air, could not thrive. 



I urged that it was not the part of a good farmer to give 

 up without investigating the causes that made it difficult 

 to grow clover where it once throve well, and told them 

 that they not only needed a shorter rotation but Hme to 

 restore the alkahnity of their soil associated with the 

 mineral plant foods that they had been selhng off their 

 farms in hay and milk. 



Heavy crops of hay, Hke heavy crops of other things, 

 pay better than poor crops, and the only way to make hay 

 growing profitable is to keep up the fertiHty of the soil, 

 and right there is where the commercial fertihzers come 

 in most profitably if they are used not merely for the 

 production of crops direct but in the growing of those 

 crops that feed the land and the stock at same time. 



A farm where hay is one of the money 



°^ ^^\ ^^ crops will of necessity be a farm where 

 the small grain crop is of importance, and 

 wheat can well be associated with hay as a market 

 crop. 



On such a farm I would devote the entire corn crop to 

 the making of silage for feeding on the farm, and I would 

 not be tempted by a high price for straw to sell the wheat 

 straw, but would consider it one of the important materials 

 for increasing the manure and the humus in the soil, for 

 no matter what is the sale crop the keeping up of the 

 humus-making material in the soil is essential to success. 

 And no matter how important the sale of hay may be it 

 is equally important that some form of Hve stock industry 

 should be carried on. 



