FIFTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 157 



.tho\ sliould have clone, .'iiul I think it caused too much acid 

 in the soil. JUit where you can't grow an\thing- else. 1 guess 

 rye is a pretty good thing on the New England side hills to 

 keep them from washing in the winter. I don't think it 

 adds much fertility. However, in regard to crimson clover, 

 I tried a crop of it and raised a good crop ; it was in a young 

 peach orchard that was not in bearing, and I was foolish 

 •enough to let it grow to the blossom stage and cut it and 

 made good hay out of it. but the orchard did not do as 

 well that year, after that kind of treatment. However, proper 

 fertilizing brought the orchard out later on. 



^Mr. Barnes : The matter of growing crops on the Wal- 

 lingford plains has been spoken of here, and I want to say 

 this in regard to them. We own some land on the Wallingford 

 plains, and for some ten or fifteen years we have made a 

 practice of sowing rye on that soil whenever I thought it was 

 going to be vacant, and we have used a good deal of fertilizer 

 on that soil, but the first thing I do in turning over a piece 

 •of that waste land is to put some rye on it, and I am very 

 frequently asked wdiat I have done to that good-for-nothing 

 plain land to make it so productive. I have taken pretty good 

 care of it and have got it where I can grow good crops on it. 

 This last year I failed to get a good seeding of corn on 

 the land owing to poor seed, and along about July I sowed 

 a mixture of crimson clover, red clover and cowhorn turnips, 

 with the idea that I might succeed in growing a crop of crim- 

 son clover that would go through the winter. I have several 

 times got it to grow through the fall, but when it came 

 spring I had none, and the land was barren of crimson clover. 

 Well, the crimson clover and the others came up all right, 

 and the ground at freezing time was thoroughh' covered with 

 all these plants, but when spring came (the turnips having 

 been allowed to remain on the soil mostly as a protection, 

 hoping the crimson clover would come through) we were 

 without any crimson clover, the turnips were dead, of course, 

 but we did have a fine lot of red clover, and we got a suc- 

 ceeding growth which was turned into the soil, and it made 

 the foundation of a crop of nursery peach trees to sell to 

 •our Connecticut brother orchardists. And I think for our 



