222 CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, ILLINOIS. 



sense system of agriculture, to exhaust that fertiUty by a con- 

 stant cropping in some special and continued channel. 



VALUE OF OLD PASTURE. 



I keep at least one-third of all my land in pasture. To 

 accomplish this, I have fifty acres of cleared land on which 

 there is a thick set, tough sod of blue grass, much better, I 

 think, than can be produced on land that has been in cultivation. 

 This I regard as permanent, and endeavor, by pasturing my 

 timothy and clover fields, meadows, stubble-fields etc., to keep 

 it for Winter pasturage. I am fully persuaded that this fifty 

 acres, when I succeed in saving the Summer and Fall growth, 

 after pasturing for two or three months in Spring, is worth as 

 much as thirty acres of corn with all the labor and expense of 

 the latter's production. In addition to this, I have three fields 

 containing from forty to fifty acres each: these I keep heavily 

 seeded with timothy and clover. I pasture two of them and 

 sow the other two to wheat, in regular rotation. After seeding 

 dQjvn a new meadow, to which I usually devote at least thirty 

 a^cres, I pasture my old meadow two years, feeding on it during 

 the Winter months, to properly fertilize it for the two or 

 three crops of corn that follow. The nature of the soil is of 

 such wonderful fertilit}^ that it does not require the labor, care, 

 or expense of preparing compost heaps, making vats for liquid 

 manure, and purchasing fertilizers. But it can not be denied 

 good management, and is improved by rest and rotation in crop. 

 Such a change would be from grain to grass at regular periods. 

 By steadily pursuing this plan my farm, although it has been 

 in cultivation forty years, and was somewhat exhausted by 

 constant cropping when I came into possession of it, has grad- 

 ually improved, until fields that formerly produced from twenty 

 to forty bushels of corn will, with the same labor and expense, 

 now produce from fifty to seventy bushels per acre. 



THE MOST IMPORTANT OBJECT IN SEEDING 



a new meadow or pasture, as well as other crops, is to pro- 

 cure a good stand. To accomplish this, after having wasted a 



