150 CLOVKK CULTURE. 



rock, it only increases his supply of home-made fertilizers by 

 the careful husbanding- and diligent application of which he 

 is ever restoring- to the land its own. The future prosperity 

 of the Western farmer depends, more than on anything- else, 

 on whether he elects the part of wisdom, and the prosperity of 

 any section or of any community depends upon the number of 

 farmers who make this choice. 



It cannot have escaped the attention of thoughtful stu- 

 dents of agriculture that in any country that is really pros- 

 perous for any great length of time the farmers have settled 

 down to a system of mixed grain and stock growing and the 

 cultivation of the tame grasses that are so essential to success 

 in this line. The ranch system so long dependent wholly on 

 the wild grasses may endure for a time, or as long as these 

 grasses are abundant and free to all, so to speak, "without 

 money and without price," but it should be noted that even 

 the ranchman is turning to alfalfa. Nor should it escape the 

 notice of the thoughtful that among the grasses that form 

 these cultivated pastures the legumes have always had an 

 important place, and that the failure of clover in any nation 

 except as part of a long rotation has always been regarded as 

 a great calamity. 



Circumstances will compel the Western farmer to adopt 

 the same methods. He has, however, a great advantage over 

 all the farmers that were before him. They grew the clovers 

 because they found by experience that they increased the value 

 of all subsequent crops, but did not know how or why. Their 

 farming was on the principle of "cut and try." The modern 

 farmer is now in the position of the tailor who has a rule by 

 which he can cut and be reasonably sure of a fairly good fit. 

 He knows, or at least may know, that by the use of clover he 

 can store up nitrogen in his soil for a crop of wheat, corn or 

 flax following. He knows what plants can obtain nitrogen 

 from the atmosphere and what can not, why timothy always 

 does well after clover, why blue grass flourishes with white 

 clover as a growing mate, and can thus plan his rotations and 

 his seed mixtures with intelligent foresight, as a painter 

 mixes his paints and plans his work, knowing beforehand 

 very nearly what will be the result. fl> 



The Western farmer has been placed for many years in a 

 peculiarly trying position, and that largely through no fault 

 of his own. * In the last thirty years a vast empire has been 

 opened up west of the Missouri. Its fabulous wealth has 

 been advertised over Europe and America by railroads inter- 

 ested in its settlement. Population has rushed in, fully im- 

 bued with the idea that unlimited acres of inexhaustible 



