ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOOIATION. 107 



f(;r the cows and good for the land. Joseph Harris mentions 

 it as the great renovating crop of the American agriculture. 

 Its place has never yet been taken hj any of the leguminous 

 crops with which we are acquainted. During its growth, a 

 lai'ge amount of nitrogenious matter accumulates in the soil; 

 hence, the great value of clover as a fertilizer. It furnishes 

 shade for the soil during the fierce drying heat of summer, its 

 leaves are continually falling and soon form a delicate cover- 

 ing for the entire soil, easily penetrated by the air and en- 

 able it to receive those atmospheric elements that are to en- 

 rich it. It further does not, like most manures, impart fer- 

 tility in spots, but to the entire soil. According to ex- 

 tended experiments, the land derives more benefit when 

 clover is cut for hay than when pastured off by animals, and 

 more by being cut twice, than only once, and still better re- 

 sults are derived from clover being allowed to go to seed than 

 when cut for hay; for, in this case, the roots become stronger 

 and more numerous and more leaves fall to the ground. Its 

 rank growth further makes it a valuable crop for green 

 manuring by plowing under, when it has these effects. It 

 gives vegetable mold, the roots bring plant food out of the 

 subsoil, and the acid produced when the decay is going on, 

 ai(] in decomposing and desolving the animal parts of the 

 soil and make them available for the assimilation of the grow- 

 ing plant. 



Grass and clover cut and fed to the stock and the manure 

 applied to the land will produce as good or better results 

 than if the original crop had been plowed under. In which 

 case the material has been rectified and concentrated in the 

 animal labratory, and without the loss of any desirable con- 

 stituents, at the same time, giving us a more soluable manure 

 and the added profit from the stock. 



Manure xDroduced from any kind of food is worth a large 

 per centage of its first cost, ranging according to circum- 

 stances and locality, so that in selling our crops we are at 

 thr same time sending away this fertility and getting nothing 

 for it, as we only get pay for the amount of nourishment as 

 food contained in the same. It has been noticed that it is 

 almost impossible to grow red clover year after year upon 

 ordinary farm soil. Old fields of clover become thin and 



