CLOVER CULTURE. 15S 



of crude products to a consumer from a thousand to five 

 thousand miles distant. It matters little how cheap freight 

 rates may be, for the obvious reason that competitors are 

 likely to have them as cheap. Freight rates by rail can be 

 reduced about as much in one part of the world as in the other, 

 for the reason that the reduction is the result of inventions in 

 which the whole world shares. Water freights are prac- 

 tically equal with each other, and, hence, it is not the cost of 

 freight, but the fact that freight must be paid, and that, too r 

 by the farmer, that makes hard times in any country that 

 must find a customer for its bulky or heavy products in a far- 

 distant market. The " way out " must, therefore, suggest a 

 method by which the farmer can convert these bulky products 

 into some more compact and available form. The introduc- 

 tion of the clovers and other cultivated grasses at once reduces 

 the acreage of the cereals and paves the way for successful 

 stock growing, which, in turn, furnishes a means for con- 

 densing freights. 



It requires no prophet to forsee what would be the imme- 

 diate result if half the lands now in cereals in Kansas, 

 Nebraska and southern Dakota were successfully sown to 

 clovers next year. There would be an immediate, though 

 temporary reduction in the yield of cereals which would at 

 once be felt in prices, demand for improved stock to suit the 

 improved conditions, and a decrease in the amount of freights 

 furnished the railroads. It is quite true that a large amount 

 of the corn grown in these states is condensed by feeding to 

 stock brought in from the ranges. This system, however 

 convenient or profitable it may be for the time, leads surely 

 and speedily to the soil exhaustion of these states. The 

 feeding is done on comparatively few farms and by men who 

 are feeders rather than farmers, and thus a few acres are 

 enriched at the expense of. the many. When farmers in these 

 states adopt the method of farming half the land and seeding 

 the remainder to tame grasses, where these can be grown, 

 they will be able not only to maintain the fertility of their 

 soil, but place themselves in the position which farmers the 

 world over occupy, wherever agriculture is permanently pros- 

 perous. 



Nor are we advocating any new or untried policy. Corn 

 is grown in nearly every state in the Union, and yet there are 

 but seven corn surplus states, or states that grow an amount 

 beyond their home requirements, and the surplus pro- 

 duced by two of these is comparatively small. This policy 

 has been largely adopted in all the states east of the Missouri. 

 As the gfrasses and leerumes travel westward, elevator 



