Treatment of Clover. 137 



in bloom and well cured. It lias nearly double the albuminoids, 

 (flesh-forming substance), a little more fat, but not quite as much 

 of the carbohydrates. But, of course, you know the former sub- 

 stance is the most valuable. It is what we get so largely in lin- 

 seed meal and cottonseed meal. As compared with oats, clover 

 hay has fully as much of the albuminoids, pound for pound, but 

 not quite as much of the fats, and is quite a little behind in carbo- 

 hydrates. Theoretically, good clover hay is about a perfect food 

 for cattle and horses. It comes nearer to this than any other 

 single article that is fed. But I am speaking of early cut clover 

 dried grass not that that has stood too long. The practical 

 farmer agrees well with the chemist in regard to the value of good' 

 clover hay, at least some of them do. When I first began farm- 

 ing, it seemed to me that if clover contained as much of the flesh- 

 forming substance as oats, ton for ton, that, as I could raise five 

 times as many pounds of clover hay per acre by cutting twice as 

 I could of oats, I had better drop oats as a crop, and I did. And 

 this is not only true, practically, but the clover tends to increase 

 fertility, while oats would not. To bring in an oat crop I should 

 have to increase my rotation to a four-year one instead of three, 

 bringing in the renovating influence of clover less often. Rather 

 than do this on my farm, as a matter of money making, I had 

 better buy oats, by all means, if they are needed. I might raise 

 them, of course, whether it paid or not. But I do not think they 

 would ever stand up to be cut on my clover-fed land. Clover has 

 been with us for some ten years a by-product. We must grow it 

 to furnish fertility. We need not plow it all under. If we can keep 

 our horses on it, instead of on timothy and grain, we are ahead. 

 The nutrition is in the clover. It is only a question of whether 

 we can get it out practically. We have done so. During the 

 last ten years, I presume, the feeding of clover to our horses, in- 

 stead of timothy and grain, has saved us in the grain bill $1,000 

 or more. This may seem large to some, but we never have less 

 than four horses and often more; $100 worth of oats a year would 

 not be as heavy feeding as some neighbors give. As it is, I have 

 not fed $100 worth of grain in twenty years. Ten years ago last 

 fall, I bought a fine team of work horses, weighing about 2500. 

 They were six years old, and had been used to a heavy feed of 

 grain three times a day. I gradually worked them off of grain 

 onto clover only. I took care of them myself then, entirely, and 

 drove them myself. I had a desire to show people what I could 

 do with clover. Before that I had not had a fair chance. My 

 horses were inferior, and old, and grain would not have made 

 them much different. Well, when I bought this good team, as 

 fine as walked in these parts, fitted up to sell, people said, fat and 

 sleek, one good old neighbor said to the one who sold them to me, 

 "Doesn't your conscience trouble you, selling that team to Terry 

 to starve. He will let them run right down." Instead, people 



