field, one that had been thrown out in the commons. 

 I^five or six years* growth of scrub oak and sassafras 

 (tshes covered the ground where the washes and 

 gullies were not so numerous as to prevent their 

 growth. The soil, geologically speaking, once was a 

 clay loam (now ail gone). The subsoil was yellow 

 clay underlaid by a stratum of clay, sand, and gravel. 

 I give this full description of the condition and the 

 character of the soil because there are so many similar 

 farms in the same condition, not only here in Ken- 

 tucky, but through the whole Mississippi Valley, 

 north and south, and there are so many farmers who 

 might be benefited, if they only would be, by sowing 

 sweet clover. 



The oak and sassafras bushes were cut and piled 

 in ine gullies; the top of the brush was laid up the 

 hill so that the forks of the little limbs would catch 

 thQ trash. This would catch other trash and earth, 

 which would fill in around the larger brush and soon 

 fi-1 the gully. The backbones, or little ridges, be- 

 tween the gullies were dug off into the gullies and 

 tramped hard on to the bushes. -The larger ridges 

 were plowed and harrowed, then the entire field was 

 sown in the spring to sweet clover and blue-grass. 



The sweet clover came up nicely the first season; 

 but the blue-grass did not come up until the second; 

 then the sweet clover was tall enough to shade the 

 tender grass through the heat of summer and to pro- 

 tect it through the winter. At the end of the second 

 season, when the sweet clover went to seed, there 

 was a growth of the sweet clover fully six feet tall, 

 and heavy enough to hide a sheep any place in the 

 field. The blue-grass was five c. six inches tall, but 

 thin on the ground. When the ground was dry, dur- 

 ing the fall and early winter, this field was pastured 

 with a few mules and horses. In feeding on the grass 

 they trod down the dead sweet-clover stalks, which 

 served as a mulch to the seedling sweet clover, and 

 prevented the ground from washing. At the begin- 

 g^ng of the third season a fine crop of the sweet clover 

 Hme up, which with the blue-grass made fine grazing. 



89 



