CHAPTER XVI. 



TREATMENT OF CLOVER. 



>OU have had a whole chapter on the fertilizing value 

 of clover, and it was broadly hinted that we gave 

 it the best of care, just as we would any other crop. 

 Let me tell you just how we treat it now to get the 

 most money out of it on our farm. The matter of 

 seeding will be more fully discussed in another 

 chapter. Briefly here I will say we sow clover seed alone, now, 

 on our winter wheat, and have always sown it very early. We 

 have never had a failure to "catch " in twenty-three years. We 

 got good results from clover and timothy, but for our farm we 

 can get better from clover alone. This is for fertilizing our land 

 all we can for wheat and potatoes, hay being a secondary matter. 

 It certainly is true on most of our land. I am inclined to think 

 a little timothy might be better with the clover on some of the 

 very heaviest clay. When we come to cut the wheat, then our 

 care of the clover begins. It is not left to grow if it can, or as it 

 happens to be, but is systematically tended to the same as a crop 

 of potatoes would be. It is not the money crop, but it is the 

 feeder of it, and hence equally important. When I ride the 

 binder I am looking at the clover all over the field. The same 

 when drawing in the wheat, as I may have time. Some of the 

 clover will look weak and feeble, some years, "at that time, as 

 though it was almost a question whether or not it could pull 

 through. Some may be strong and rank. One must decide the 

 cause in each case, and act accordingly. If the wheat is very 

 heavy and thick, good for forty bushels per acre, and the clover 

 is small, I know why. It has been almost smothered. But it 

 only needs letting alone, and it will soon come up on such land, 

 wet or dry, hot or cold. If it is small and feeble where wheat is 

 badly lodged, it will also generally take care of itself after the 

 wheat is removed. Where very heavy wheat gets down early 

 there will be small spots smothered out, sometimes, but I have 

 never had enough to make serious trouble. The land is so rich in 

 such spots that even if the clover seems all killed it does come on 

 afterwards. Seeds that hadn't grown before, perhaps, now come, 

 and if there are only a few plants they will stool out like every- 

 thing. I have never but once sowed any seed again in such 

 places. They come without. But now, if there is a spot where 

 wheat is thin, will yield, say, twenty bushels per acre, and clover 

 is rather feeble, too, that clover wants feeding moderately. If I 



