78 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 



get from one crop in the course of three or four 

 years would not suffice, and this fact no doubt ac- 

 counts for the fact that where clover is depended 

 upon to furnish the fertility of our soils, there 

 we have an abundance of worn and worn-out soils, 

 in fine, the soils become so that they will no longer 

 produce clover in quantity. 



Clover has been chiefly grown upon our soils be- 

 cause it was believed to be an organic matter pro- 

 ducer and one of the nitrogen gathering plants 

 that gathers the nitrogen from the air and stores 

 it into the soil. And yet it is a notorious fact 

 that all lands that grow clover for a series of 

 years become "clover sick" and refuse to grow 

 it at all. Millions of dollars have been invested 

 in clover seed which never brought back a penny 

 in crop returns. Soil becomes clover sick because 

 it has lost its lime and organic matter content, 

 chiefly on account of the latter. Best ore lime by 

 the use of ground limestone, from two to six tons 

 per acre, grow green manuring crops like rye, 

 vetch and sweet clover, that furnish large quanti- 

 ties of organic matter, and you get the soil in con- 

 dition again to grow clover. 



The author has seen worn soil that refused to 

 grow clover, planted to rye, the rye was sown in 

 the corn in August, and the rye and corn stalks all 

 plowed under in the spring. After one or two 

 crops of the organic matter that this system fur- 

 nished had been plowed into this soil, big crops of 

 clover was grown upon it again. 



For the past seven years rye has been, with the 

 author and numerous of his acquaintances as 

 well, one of his chief organic matter producers. 



