CLOVER THE BEST FERTILIZER. 47^ 



Second, wheat. I plow the ground as early in the Fall as 

 possible after the flax crop is removed, and then before freezing, 

 I harrow the ground thoroughly, and sow about one and a 

 half bushels of wheat to the acre, as early in the Spring as the 

 frost is out sufficiently to allow the working of the seeder and 

 the harrow. 



OATS. 



Plow the wheat stubble in the Fall, the earlier the better^ 

 and sow oats, two bushels on an acre, as early in the Spring as 

 possible. 



CORN. 



I plow deep, in the Fall, or if left until Spring, I do not 

 plow quite so deep. Wlien my com is harvested the ground is 

 ready for another flax crop. If I can have n^anure, I cover 

 with a good coat before planting to corn. 



This rotation brings me around to the corn. I follow this 

 course for a series of years on my soil, but if I do not have 

 manure, I do not sow with the flax, but seed with red clover, 

 letting it remain for two seasons and then plow under and put 

 on corn. 



Clover is the best fertilizer. I sowed a field with 

 it, about five quarts to the acre, in 1875, and I never saw 

 a better growth in the Eastern States than it made. It was 

 mowed and pastured three years. I found that where the 

 second crop was cut late in the Fall, the roots were to some 

 extent killed by freezing ; but where the crop was not pas- 

 tured off too closely, it stood the cold Winters very well. 

 I sold the land to my brother, and in the Spring of 1879, he 

 plowed this clover sod, about the first of May, and planted it, 

 with other land, on the fifteenth of May, with corn. The 

 land was all cultivated alU^e during tlie season, and when 

 husked in November, the corn on the clover land yielded fully 

 fifteen bushels (seventy pounds of ears) more than the other 

 part of his field, where other crops had been raised for several 

 years preceding. The yield on the clover ground was seventy- 

 four bushels to the acre. His whole crop on the ninety-seven 



