No. 4.] MODERN POTATO CULTURE. 67 



was sixt y-five per cent of the average of the other plots in the 

 field, — not much more than half, as you will see. Then we 

 sowed the field with clover in August of 1898, and in 1899 

 we got two good crops of clover upon the field. \\ r e had 

 intended to leave the field in closer another year, but the 

 winter was rather hard on it, and it seemed to be in poor 

 condition in the spring of 1900, so the field was plowed and 

 planted with potatoes ; and the crop of potatoes, the average 

 of the three plots that had had no nitrogenous manure or 

 fertilizer in all that time, was almost as good as on any plot 

 in the field. The average was a little over ninety-five per 

 cent, and it was a good crop. Nineteen hundred was not 

 a very good year for potatoes, but our yield was about two 

 hundred bushels of merchantable potatoes, — almost exactly 

 as many on the three plots that had had no nitrogen for 

 about fifteen years. 



Question. Did that effect come from the roots? 



Professor Brooks. From the roots and the stubble. We 

 got two good crops of clover that year. And here I would 

 express my conviction that, under the conditions existing on 

 most of our farms, it is better for us to vary our practice 

 from that which Professor Woods has spoken of, namely, of 

 plowing under the second crop of clover. I think we get 

 the most advantage when we harvest the second crop as well 

 as the first, and depend on the clover sod. When we do that, 

 I think the value of the stubble and the roots that we reap 

 will be equal to the value of the second crop, if you turn it 

 all in. We have to consider whether this second crop of 

 clover is not worth more to feed than it is to turn in. It 

 has two values : it has a food value, and it has also a manure 

 value ; but we can harvest it, under the conditions on most 

 of our farms, and feed it, and derive profit from it as food ; 

 and then, if we will save the droppings of our animals and 

 apply them judiciously, we will have saved the manurial 

 value, putting that on our land. Wherever a crop that is 

 fit for fodder stands growing in the field and can be fed, I 

 believe that is the best course to pursue, — to harvest it and 

 feed it, and husband the manure and put that on, and not 

 turn the crop under. 



