MANAGEMENT OF MANUKES ON GRAIX-FAKMS. 119 



" In our own case, sheep have been combined with grain- raising. 

 So we have sold wool, wheat, and barley, and, in all my life, not 

 five tons of hay. Clover, you know, has been our great forage- 

 crop. We have wintered our sheep mostly on clover-hay, having 

 some timothy mixed with it, that was necessarily cut (to make into 

 hay with the medium, or early clover,) when it was but grass. We 

 have fed such hay to our cows and horses, and have usually 

 worked into manure the corn-stalks of about 20 acres of good 

 corn, each winter, and we have worked all the straw into shape to 

 apply as manure that we could, spreading it thickly on pastures 

 and such other fields as were convenient. Some straw we have 

 sold, mostly to paper-makers." 



"That," said the Deacon, "is good, old-fashioned farming. 

 Plenty of straw fer bedding, and good clover and timothy-hay for 

 feed, with wool, wheat, and barley to sell. No talk about oil- 

 cake, malt-combs, and mangels ; nothing about superphosphate, 

 guano, or swamp-rnuck." 



Mr. Geddes and Mr. Johnston are both representative farmers ; 

 both are large wheat-growers; both keep their land clean and 

 thoroughly cultivated ; both use gypsum freely ; both raise large 

 crops of clover and timothy ; both keep sheep, and yet they rep- 

 resent two entirely different systems of farming. One is the great 

 advocate of clover ; the other is the great advocate of manure. 



I once wrote to Mr. Geddes, asking his opinion as to the best 

 time to plow under clover for wheat. He replied as follows : 



k ' Plow under the clover when it is at full growth. But your 

 question can much better be answered at the end of a long, free 

 talk, which can best be had here. I have many times asked you 

 to come here, not to see fine farming, for we have none to show, 

 but to see land that has been used to test the effects of clover for 

 nearly 70 years. On the ground, I could talk to a willing auditor 

 long, if not wisely. I am getting tired of being misunderstood, 

 and of having my statements doubted when I talk about clover 

 as the great renovator of land. You preach agricultural truth, 

 and the facts you would gather in this neighborhood are worth 

 your knowing, and worth giving to the world. So come here and 

 gather some facts about clover. All that I shall try to prove to 

 you is, that the fact that clover and plaster are by far the cheapest 

 manures that can be had for our lands, has been demonstrated by 

 many farmers beyond a doubt so much cheaper than barn-yard 

 manure that the mere loading of and spreading costs more than 



