No. 4.] NITROGEN AND FERTILITY. 191 



Mr. Pratt. Some two years ago in the fall I seeded 

 down a piece of red-top and timotliy, and had a very good 

 catch ; had an excellent crop of red-top and timothy the 

 following season, and cut it off. This present season I have 

 cut two heavy crops of clover ; the third I left. I have not 

 applied clover seed to it at any time, and it is a very sur- 

 prising fact to me that the timothy was all gone and the 

 heavy crop of clover came early in this last season, and 

 after cutting that off there followed a very heavy second 

 crop. 



Dr. Woods. In some way there must have been a seed- 

 ing of clover naturally, or the seed had some clover in it. 

 The first-year clover isn't very conspicuous, particularly 

 where you have a very heavy growth of timothy ; and I 

 suspect, if after haying you had looked down into the 

 stubble, you would have found clover all through it, and 

 that later it came on and got the upper hand of the grasses. 



Mr. Pratt. In regard to these rye fields, my custom is 

 to put on the smoothing harrow and go over it once or 

 twice, so as to lighten up the soil, and then sow on the 

 seed. What fertilizer would you advise me to apply in 

 order to help both the rye crop and the clover crop ? 



Dr. Woods. Of course you are fertilizing two diflerent 

 kinds of crop there. For the clover alone you would want 

 no nitrogen, and would want an abundance of phosphoric 

 acid and potash. You would also need for your rye some 

 nitrogen. I should say let the rye take care of itself, and 

 then put on a mineral fertilizer, 400 pounds of acid phos- 

 phate and 200 pounds of muriate of potash to the acre. 



Question. What per cent of the manure is lost by haul- 

 ing it out and leaving it on the ground in small heaps, not 

 spreading it until spring? How much more loss than in 

 leaving it in the open cellar till spring? 



Dr. Woods. There have been only one or two series of 

 experiments made on that line, and I don't regard them as 

 thoroughly satisfactory ; based on them, 20 per cent loss. 



Question. How much more if the manure was spread on 

 frozen ground in the fall? 



