ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 51 



eight feet long and eighteen inches wide from which the earth 

 was removed to the depth of two feet. By means of a spray of 

 water the earth was washed from the clover roots, leaving a 

 mass of rootlets so dense as to make one wonder where the earth 

 could have found place between them. The clover field was 

 yielding one and one-half tons of dry hay per acre. When the 

 roots were cut off at nine inches below the surface and analyzed 

 it was found that the clover roots gave to the soil as much plant 

 food, as much nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash as ten good 

 loads of barnyard manure per acre. Naturally the crop contained 

 much more and I doubt not that where the second crop of cl< >ver 

 is plowed under, tops and all, it adds as much available plant 

 food to the soil as a good coat of twelve or fifteen or perhaps 

 twenty loads of manure per acre. Better harvest the hay and 

 feed it, returning the manure to the soil than to plow under this 

 valuable feeding stuff. 



Xor are there any losses to be noted by reason of spreading 

 the manure on the snow in the winter. When the snow disap- 

 pears the plant food sinks into the soil. Our experiments along 

 this line were elaborate and fairly sufficient to show no great loss 

 from following our method. 



It is more tjian probable, it is certain, that our rotation would 

 not fit Illinois conditions. We are recommending and using a 

 three year rotation, corn, fall wheat, clover, corn. Here we 

 plow after the clover and before the corn and not again for 

 three years. The rotation furnishes us bedding, the best hay in 

 the world except alfalfa, and silage. With a good field of peas 

 and oats or peas and barley to supply some additional protein we 

 do not need to buy much grain food. What we do buy furnishes 

 protein, and furnishes it very cheaply. In fact we select in the 

 market the food that furnishes the protein at the least cost pet- 

 pound, and if it is adapted to the dairy cow we buy it. 



But the farmer is interested also in furnishing pure milk. 

 The markets and the factories are not as discriminating as they 

 ought to be in this respect. Physicians and health officers have 

 done much to educate the consumers of raw milk as to the dan- 



