CHAPTER XXVII. 



SOWING CLOVER, TIMOTHY AND HUNGARIAN GRASS SEED. 



UR clover seed has always been sown early, and 

 during all these twenty-three years we have never 

 had a failure. What I mean is, we have never 

 failed to get a reasonable " catch." Of course, it 

 is better some years than others. One spring, 

 when I was sick, a neighbor came and sowed for 

 me and I set the machine as I used it, and he took much longer 

 steps than I and only got out a little more than half enough seed ; 

 but it was a fair stand even, but thin. The right time to sow 

 here is about the last of February or first of March. Some years 

 it is two weeks earlier than others. The conditions are about 

 right usually for two or three mornings. When the snow is about 

 gone and it begins to warm up and thaw considerably daytimes 

 and freeze quite sharply at night, throwing up the then moist sur- 

 face of the earth in a way that is injurious to wheat, then, the very 

 first morning of this kind, I am out sowing my clover seed. The 

 earth heaves up more at the very beginning of such weather, as 

 the surface is more moist, usually. My drained land soon becomes 

 settled, and if it freezes later it does not honeycomb so much. I 

 like a still morning, and a frosty one will be likely to be still from 

 daylight till 8 o'clock, still enough for sowing clover seed. How- 

 ever, I can and have sown clover seed and Hungarian when the 

 wind blew so I could hardly keep a straw hat on, and had it even, 

 too. I mean just what I say. A year ago I was only home one 

 morning from the institutes, and this happened to be a good morn- 

 ing, only the wind came up before I got half through- and blew 

 almost a gale. But it was exactly south, and I was so wing north 

 and south, the long way of my lots. It will not do to sow in a 

 strong side wind, but one can in a head wind, if it blows at all steady. 

 If it came in puffs I should be afraid of it. Well, the seed sown 

 that morning was so evenly distributed that there is not a square 

 foot that has not a good stand on it. There is not, nor was not, a 

 sign of a streak. I never had a streak in any sowing I ever did. 

 It was hard on the eyes facing the wind, that was all. I looked 

 for a day or two as though I had been on a spree. A pair of dust 

 glasses would help in such a case. I have pulled my straw hat 

 down over my face, putting it on my face instead of top of head, 

 and then made a little bit of a hole in it to look through. Going 

 with the wind, I put it back on my head. I remember once sowing 



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