152 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



didn't make the statement, I will now, that we do that very 

 same thing. 



Mr. Sessions. In calling out Mr. Bliss, I wanted to em- 

 phasize the fact that some of our old meadows among the hills 

 that have never been plowed, where the owners feel they 

 cannot plow them on account of the stone never having been 

 taken out, may be brought into condition without plowing 

 by the use of the harrow. 



Mr. West. I think in my town we have some alluvial 

 soils which haven't been fertilized perhaps for one hundred 

 years, and as a general rule we get two crops from them. 

 On some of it clover has been sowed years ago, and some 

 years there will be considerable clover, and then it will skip 

 a year, and the following year there will be clover again. 



Mr, Wm. H. Bowker (of Concord) . I would like to ask 

 Professor Hurd if he has made a comparison of the amount 

 of nutrition that is taken out of the soil by a fodder corn 

 crop — field corn or fodder corn — with that of the clover 

 crop. I have experimented with a farm twenty-two years, 

 with which I was acquainted ten years earlier. We used to 

 get very good clover. We never could get the alsike to 

 stand, while the red clover stood very well ; Init hy climatic 

 conditions, or for some reason or other, our clover crops 

 were killed out very largely, I think by ice forming on the 

 surface, until we gave it up and went to growing corn, — 

 ensilage corn and fodder corn, — believing we would get 

 more out of the soil and be sure of it every year than by 

 raising clover. I suppose the root system of the corn plant 

 is a very extensive system ; it doesn't run as deep as the 

 clover, but the rotting of the root system must have some- 

 thing to do with the fertility of the -soil. I wonder if any 

 experiments or tests have been made as to the actual nutri- 

 tion taken out by a good-sized ensilage crop, or corn, and 

 also the amount of fertility that is given by the rotting 

 of the roots, as compared with the clover. The corn crop 

 we are sure of, but not the clover crop up on the hills of 

 Worcester Count}" ; and I think there are Worcester County 

 farmers here who will bear me out in saying we arc not 

 always sure of it, and I think we should bank on the crop 

 we are sure of, and not on one that will 20 back on us. 



