Clover as a Fertilizer. 125 



It is entirely certain now that clover does not draw on the 

 soil only for its fertility, and hence it is not like drawing on a bank 

 where you can only check out what you have first deposited. It 

 is not like taking money out of one pocket and putting it in the 

 other, which does not make you any richer, only in part. You 

 can get some fertility free from the air. If your land is drained 

 naturally, or with tiles, you can draw on another farm down be- 

 low yours, by means of clover. If you had rather it would lie 

 there idle, waiting for a more progressive man to pump up 

 thousand of dollars, like coal in a mine or oil in the bowels of 

 the earth, all right. 



Of course, clover grows in the soil and draws on it partly 

 while adding to the available fertility. It perhaps can get a little 

 more out of the soil itself than other plants, is a grosser feeder. 

 You cannot eat grass, but the steer can, and you can eat the steer 

 then, and so get the grass. Just so clover may get some fertility 

 from the soil itself that wheat and other crops could not, and then 

 being turned under, this food becomes available to the other crops, 

 food which they could not use before clover did its work. 



But now let us look at what becomes of that $70.60 worth, 

 more or less, of fertility that clover giyes me per acre. You may 

 cut it down $10 or $20, and still it is a big thing, if you feel that 

 my figures are too high. They certainly would be too high for a 

 common crop ; but I think not for mine as treated. I sell in 

 three years a crop of potatoes and a crop of wheat off my land. 

 The clover and straw from wheat are never sold. The average 

 crop of potatoes is nearly six tons, say, per acre, and of wheat 

 one ton. The potatoes contain $12.24 worth of fertilizer; the 

 wheat, $7.09. Thus all I sell off of an acre in three years is 

 $19.33 worth of fertilizer. With more than three times this amount 

 furnished by the clover, is it any wonder fertilizers fail to show 

 any result whatever ? Of this I will speak more fully under the 

 head of Manures. The question was asked Prof. Thorne last 

 winter at an institute, What becomes of the rest of that fertility 

 that clover furnishes ? He replied : "It takes some to grow the 

 vines, of course, of his potatoes, and the straw of wheat, and then 

 a crop cannot use all of any food furnished. When we use com- 

 mercial fertilizers, the crop cannot make use of near all, no 

 matter how soluble they may be. The rest is changed into in- 

 soluble (for the time being) compounds, and is stored up. I 

 believe Mr. Terry is storing up fertility in his soil. If he should 

 stop growing clover he could draw on this somewhat until it 

 became exhausted." 



We have now gone over the subject quite fully, giving the 

 reasons why clover increases the fertility of our soils. According 

 to the latest teachings of science, what has been said is about cor- 

 rect. Several times last winter I was honored by the presence in 

 the audience at institutes of high scientific authorities such men 



