RESTORATION OF WORN-OUT FIELDS. 173 



amusing and annoying. Nevertheless, the changes were made, 

 but I am free to confess that some were right and some were 

 wrong. 



RESTORATION" OP WORN-OUT FIELDS. 



When the fields were all platted and fenced, my attention 

 was turned to the cultivation of the lands, which had been 

 cropped and re-cropped with corn, and an occasional sowing 

 of wheat, until fifteen bushels of corn and ten bushels of 

 wheat was the average result. Fortunately a portion of the 

 farm had been allowed to remain in grass. One of these fields 

 was well broken in the Fall of 1874, and cultivated, cross har- 

 rowed and sown with red clover early in May, 1875. One 

 bushel of clover seed was used upon three acres. Late in July 

 the fox-tail, cockle burr and a coarse weed (name not known) 

 so covered the clover as to nearly hide it. The hired man who 

 lived on the place was shocked when he was told to take the 

 mowing machine, set as high from the ground as possible, and 

 cut clover, fox-tail, burrs and weeds all together. I used the 

 grass, clover and weeds for rough feed for young stock. But 

 when the weeds were rank, say four feet and over in hight, 

 they were left as a mulch for the clover. 



THE RESULT. 



The next year (1876) at the proper time, a more beautiful 

 field of clover was never seen. It was fairly crimson with 

 bloom, and at harvest yielded the bountiful crop of three and 

 one-half tons to the acre, weighed as hauled from the cocks 

 after thorough curing. Not a burr was to be found, and no 

 weed seeds having matured the field was clean and the clover 

 vigorous. In 1877 this field yielded an increased crop. A 

 vigorous after growth was turned under in August, and the 

 field sown in wheat about the 23d of September. From it in 

 1878 a yield of twenty-two and a third bushels per acre was 

 harvested. Finding a very full stand of clover on the stubble, 

 a mower was set about five inches high which cleared the 

 clover, but all standing stubble, with the few weeds that had 



