No. 4.] CATTLE FOODS. 47 



want from four to five loads on the wheat ground ; I do not 

 care about five loads on the pastures every year. 



Professor Cheesman. AVliat do you put on your pastures ? 



Professor Roberts. As far as I can I try to miitate the 

 Lord's method of buikling soil. I spread the fertilizers on 

 the soil in the fall where there is a plant growing. That is 

 the way the soil was built, and I am going to imitate that as 

 closely as I can. I put the manure on the surface in the fall 

 thinly where there is a plant growing, to act as a little 

 lilanket as well as a fertilizer. I don't want you to feel that 

 I came here to preach, — I came here to learn. 



Professor Cheesmax. Before you sit down, won't you 

 tell us your rotation and your general system of management 

 of crops ? 



Professor Roberts. One year clover, one year corn, one 

 year spring grain, — oats, l)arley and flax, — roots of vari- 

 ous kinds all go in there, — and one year wheat. It is a 

 four-years rotation. The reason I do not make it five, and 

 grow clover two years, is that the beetle destroys our clover 

 after one year, — eats it up. 



Mr. Lynde. The rotation that Professor Roberts has 

 given us is the rotatioii that is usually followed, as I under- 

 stand it, in the State of New York by the best farmers. I 

 do not think that the farmers of Massachusetts would be 

 successful with that rotation. Difl^ierent localities of course 

 require difterent methods. 



Now, in regard to the use of l)arn-yard manure. For a 

 period of years I have applied chemical fertilizers on very 

 strong land, believing for the first few years that I had found 

 the philosopher's stone ; but on that same land, after the 

 use of commercial fertilizers for a series of years, I have 

 found that I did not succeed as well as I did at the com- 

 mencement, but by the application of ]>arn-yard manure I 

 was all right. That is, there was the mechanical lio-htenino; 

 up of the soil that was necessary. The soil was hard when 

 I used nothing but chemical fertilizers. 



One thing more which I think is of importance to the 

 farmers of Massachusetts, if we can only get at it. The 

 gentleman from Nantucket said he had not succeeded quite 

 as well with his clover as formerly, and asked a question 



