CLOVER CULTURE. 149 



subject to the vicissitudes of doubtful rainfall, hot winds and 

 destroying- insects, or else yield up their natural fertility only 

 by irrigation. Capitalists can no longer buy the finest lands 

 in townships and counties, rob them of their fertility by con- 

 tinuous wheat growing- on the bonanza plan, and find in the 

 newer West fresh lands to impoverish. The migration of 

 these bonanza farmers westward must now cease. A farmer 

 who wishes a permanent home for himself and a heritage for 

 his children must buy it soon. The tabernacle of the wilder- 

 ness must give place to the permanent structure in a land not 

 divided by lot but selected by purchase. The soil robber must 

 henceforth be content with robbing himself and wasting in 

 advance the patrimony of his children. 



If, however, he makes the second election and sees in the 

 recent discoveries of agricultural science an opportunity by 

 clover culture to rob his lands more completely than before, 

 by selling in a distant market the elements of fertility in his 

 land, he should know that in this way he will reduce his land 

 to a degree of barrenness impossible under former conditions. 

 He may by clover culture become thus penny wise and pound 

 foolish. He may adopt the specious though fallacious maxim 

 that "tillage is manure," without stopping to think that im- 

 proved tillage by increasing the yield will only<rthe more 

 speedily exhaust, by the magnitude of the crops which it fur- 

 nishes, the fertility of the land. He may draw upon the gteat 

 bank, the atmosphere, for his supply of nitrogen, and if his 

 drafts be properly drawn, signed and sealed by the clover-root 

 tubercle, they will not go to protest, but when he draws upon 

 the soil for potash and phosphoric acid, he will get the quick 

 response, "Protested no funds." Every farmer owes it to 

 those who are to bear his name, to leave the acres that have 

 fed him, richer if possible than he received them from the 

 hand of Nature or a previous purchaser, or if he fails to do so, 

 he cannot with truth have the honorable title of "a good 

 farmer" engraved on the marble that is intended to perpetuate 

 his memory. 



The only wise choice is the third one above mentioned, 

 viz,, to grow clover, feed stock, husband carefully the farm- 

 yard manure and restore it to the land without waste. He 

 must necessarily dispose by the sale of his live stock and grain 

 of more or less of the great elements of fertility. c Nature, 

 however, is ever struggling to maintain it by the gradual 

 decomposition of rock material of which the soil was first 

 formed, and if he works with her he will be entitled to a 

 well earned reputation for agricultural wisdom. If better 

 methods of tillage hasten the decomposition of the primary 



