SEPTEMBER 1, 1916 



817 



Farmer in regard to growing sweet clover in an 

 orchard. I have made a careful study of this leg- 

 ume, and in my opinion no other cover crop can 

 compare with it. Last spring I seeded an acre of 

 my orchard to sweet clover which I mowed as soon 

 as the crowns for this year's growth had formed, 

 which was about Sept. 15. 



The growth from this acre was sufficient to mulch 

 every tree in the acre one foot deep and five feet in 

 diameter. This year I will get two or three cuttin ;'s, 

 each of which will be equal to the one made last 

 fall. If this be used for mulch, which in course of 

 time will decay, forming humus and in the mean 

 time holding the moisture, I cannot see how it will 

 rob the trees of moisture. 



There is no doubt that the sweet clover will draw 

 somewhat on the soil moisture, but compare it to the 

 average grass that we find growing in oi'chards, 

 which is usually a mixture of timothy and bluegrass. 

 It has to rain a day and a night to soak this leath- 

 ery covering, while with sweet clover the water finds 

 easy access into the soil. 



Furthermore, the large roots of the clover in 

 decaying and opening not only the surface soil but 

 also the subsoil, greatly increase the power of the 

 soil to assimilate and hold large quantities of mois- 

 ture. T will admit that to plow under a crop of 

 crimson clover each year is good; but other things 

 must be considered. It is a whole lot easier to say 

 plow than to go into an orchard and do it. It is 

 impossible to plow an orchard without injuring some 

 trees, either with the plow or the horses' barking 

 the trees. In the next place you cannot avoid 

 ridges and dead furrows which, if your orchard is 

 planted on a hill, will result in disastrous washes 

 and gutters. 



Here are the advantages of growing sweet clover 

 in the orchard: 1. It makes sufficient growth to 

 mulch the trees heavily, thereby retaining moisture. 

 2. It is a legume, therefore enriches the soil instead 



of making it poorer. 3. By allowing the last crop 

 to seed, it never requires re-seeding. 4. By not 

 cutting the last crop until it has ripened its seed, 

 then in raking this up and mulching with it, all 

 danger of fire running over the orchard and destroy- 

 ing it is entirely overcome, which is one of the 

 greatest if not the greatest disadvantage of the 

 mulch system. — Fred Sattleb, Tuscarawas Co., O. 



SACHALINR, " EUREKA CLOVER." 



Some eight or ten years ago, I am sorry 

 to say, our journal gave quite a favorable 

 report of saehaline as a new forage plant. 

 In 1908 I gave notice that it had never 

 made a gTowth to amount to much unless 

 planted in exceedingly rich ground. I re- 

 gTetted that I had ever boomed the stuff; 

 and the worst part of it was that no kind 

 of stock seemed to care enough for it to eat 

 it. We have just received the following: 



EUEEKA CLOVER. 



Lender the name " Eureka " clover there is now 

 being advertised a forage plant for which enormous 

 yields of green fodder are asserted. The plant in 

 question is saehaline (Polygonum sachalinense) , in- 

 troduced into the United States in 1883, and much 

 exploited in 1893 and for a few years thereafter. 



Washington, D. 0. 



It seems that the business of booming 

 some old and well-known plant under a new 

 name is not altogether done away with. 



Together with the above cliiDping came a 

 couple of pages regarding saehaline, first 

 and last. 



TEMPERANCE 



"thou child of THE DEVIL ; THOU ENEMY OF 



ALL righteousness; WILT THOU NOT 



CEASE TO PERVERT THE RIGHT WAYS 



OP THE LORD?" 



The above sounds a little rough, does it 

 not, dear friends'? But if Paul .wert' alive 

 and on earth now I believe he would say 

 just that thing to the liquor people and 

 their business. I was reminded of the above 

 by the following, which I clip from the 

 American Issue: 



BOYS AXI) GIRLS OP MORE VALUE THAN NATION'S 

 MATERIAL RESOURCES. 



The Van Wert (Ohio) Republican hits the nail 

 on the head, from an economic viewpoint, in dis- 

 cussing the liquor question. We quote from that 

 paper : 



" Life-insurance experts figure that each young 

 man and woman of good habits and sound p*sique 

 is an asset to the nation, as a producer or conserver 

 nf wealth, to the extent of $8000. There are in the 

 United States 50,000,000 children and young people 

 under 25 years of age. At $8000 apiece they are 

 an asset of $400,000,000,000. In mere dollars and 

 cents the youth of our nation are worth more than 

 our coal, our iron, our silver, our gold; more than 

 the cattle on a thousand hills; more than grain 

 from a million fields. And the legalized liquor-traffic 

 is the ruthless destroyer of youth. It begins the 

 work of destruction before birth : handicaps boys 



and girls physically and morally, and renders tens 

 of thousands not only unable to produce or con- 

 serve their quota of $8000, but makes of them de- 

 pendents and undesirables, an economic loss to the 

 nation and a menace to its stability. 



" BOOZE ■' SHOPS IN THE DISTRICT OF 

 COLUMBIA. 



Have we not as a people and as a nation 

 progressed almost far enough toward God's 

 kingdom to declare most vehemently that 

 it is a burning shame and a disgrace to our 

 nation that these hotbeds of all vice and 

 iniquity should longer remain right close to 

 the capitol of our great nation ? Se« the 

 following, Avhich I clip from the American 

 Issve : 



It is thought that the District of Columbia dj-y 

 bill will pass the Senate at the short session, if not 

 during this summer. Senator Vardaman, of Miss- 

 issippi, in his speech in the Senate the other day 

 said : 



" If the question of saloons or no saloons for the 

 District of Columbia should ever be put squarely to 

 the American Senate, I have no doubt about the 

 saloon hearing its death-knell in so far as action in 

 this body is concerned. The American people demand 

 it, and the interests of humanity call for such legis- 

 lation. The open saloon is an evil without a miti- 

 gating incident, and I submit that the great capital 



