124 Our Farming. 



has proven what the practical farmer long since knew must be the 

 fact. It was on this trip to Wisconsin that Prof. Henry said to 

 me, " I believe you are right (speaking from his experience as a 

 farmer), but I cannot prove it." Well it is proved now. It did 

 not come through the leaves as they were looking for, but through 

 the roots, but from the free nitrogen of the air, all the same. We 

 can hardly say just how much nitrogen comes in this way; in fact, 

 doubtless, the amount varies, under different conditions con- 

 siderably. We cannot say whether this point is as important, or 

 more so, than the first one considered the pumping-up power of 

 clover. They are both important. I do not attempt to consider 

 these points in the order of their importance at all. Third, clover 

 increases the fertility of the soil by shading it almost constantly 

 during the season of its growth. In figuring up the greater 

 amount of fertility that clover could store up, I did not put this 

 in. It is extra over and above the $70.60. I did not know how 

 much to put in. We haven't got far enough along to tell yet, but 

 that this is an important point I am certain. Probably it comes 

 close up to the two just passed over. This is the rule : Covered 

 land, shaded land, grows richer, and bare land grows poorer. This 

 is Nature's law. You cannot place a single straw on the surface 

 of the soil without thereby increasing the fertility. True, it is 

 precious little, but that little is in the right direction. You cannot 

 lay a board down in your garden and leave it during hot weather 

 without increasing the fertility of the soil under it. I do not say 

 it adds anything to the soil that did not exist before in some form , 

 that it creates anything, but that it makes that soil more fertile ; 

 there is more available fertility there than th^re is in the soil on each 

 side. In some way the processes of nature for making plant food 

 available have gone forward faster under that shade ; the condi- 

 tions were nearer right for it. I do not think enough credit has. 

 been given to this point in figuring up the benefits of clover grow- 

 ing. Timothy, wheat, corn, oats, do not shade the land like a 

 heavy crop of clover. There is partial shade, but not the heavy 

 mulch that clover affords, that daylight can hardly get through, 

 that scarcely dries out in midday in the warmest weather. And 

 if one manages rightly he can have these conditions, the most 

 favorable known for increasing available fertility, nearly all the 

 time from the day his wheat is removed (if clover is sown with 

 wheat) until he turns the clover under to put out a money crop. 

 Is it not correctly named a renovating crop ? Is timothy a reno- 

 vating crop? No. A change may be a rest to the land. The 

 timothy sod has considerable value to turn under, but it is not a 

 renovating crop by any means. It draws from the soil and does 

 not shade the land or in any way work much different from what 

 our regular money crops do, such as wheat, corn, oats, etc. The 

 Rural New Yorker expressed this very tersely and neatly in a 

 single line lately : " Clover collects nitrogen ; timothy eats it." 



