226 Transactions of the American Institute. 



if there is snow on the ground, one sees better what he is doing. 

 It should neither be cut nor fed till the second year. After it gets 

 firmly established, it will furnish immense feed and fodder, and the 

 best wheat can be grown by turning it under green. To keep 

 cattle in the stable and bring the green feed, either of rye, corn 

 fodder, roots or clover, is called soiling. It will seldom pay, 

 except where land is worth one hundred dollars per acre, or where 

 one cannot turn on a field. Pulling fodder is heathenish work, 

 as we very well laiow, and never would submit to it. When we 

 cut up corn, we wait till it is glazed, and we generally think the 

 quality is improved. We put it in stooks or shocks of about fourteen 

 hills, though in the South, where there are seldom more than two 

 stalks to the hill — often not more than one — more than foui-teen hills 

 might be taken. The fodder is very good. Many have machines 

 for cutting up the stalks and blades; to this is added bran or com 

 meal. The man who will show North Carolina people how to 

 grow clover will be a public benefactor. It ought to be worth as 

 much to the south as the cotton crop, for the reason that cotton, 

 wheat, corn, and all other grain will grow heavily after it. To put 

 a farm in clover adds ten dollars in value to every acre. Let the 

 one who would try it take an acre, first put on manure, if needed, 

 plow thoroughly, harrow fine, and sow. Don't pick out poor, 

 wasted land, but take the best you have. From clover comes 

 manure; with clover millions of worn-out Southern acres, in time, 

 can be made as choice as the Mississippi bottoms. 



CURRANTS IN TREE FORM. 



Mr. E. Pratt, Geneva, Ohio, writes that he agrees with the Club 

 that fairer and better currants and gooseberries can be produced 

 by training the bushes in the form of a tree. He says: 



"In the spring take good, thrifty limbs of the bushes, bend them 

 to the ground, and insert the top into a hole, as near perpendicular 

 as possible, and cover them with fine earth. In August, cut them 

 from the parent stalk. They will be well suited by that time. 

 The next spring transplant. They will grow like a tree; the fruit 

 will be much larger and better." He has tried tliis method with 

 success. 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter said he has no. confidence in the system, 

 although he has not tried it. He said the currant will produce 

 fruit for only a few successive years. Mr. Lawton coincided with 

 Mr. Carpenter. 



