CRIMSON CLOVER, COW PEAS, AND 
WINTER OATS. 
It is the purpose of this circular to give a brief description 
of the value and use of what I have pleased to designate the 
three greatest things in agriculture, viz., Crimson Clover, 
Cow Peas, and Winter Oats. 
There never has been a period in the history of American 
agriculture when farmers, by the force of circumstances be- 
yond their control, were compelled to practice such economi- 
cal methods of restoring and maintaining the fertility of the 
soil as the present. 
An era of low prices for farm products, unprecedented, in 
which the high price of commercial manures has been main- 
tained, renders it absolutely impossible for the average far- 
mer to secure the fertility required through the agency of com- 
mercial fertilizers. He must, therefore, make use of those 
methods which for ages have been regarded as most potent, 
many of which, however, remained to him as a sealed book until 
in these later years, by the experiences of practical men and 
the scientific experiments conducted by the various experi- 
mental stations of this and other countries, it has been clearly 
demonstrated that leguminous plants are the cheapest, most 
rapid, and most permanent soil renovaters extant. Nitrogen, 
the essential agent in plant production, and the most costly, 
yet which so freely abounds that more than 30,000 tons rest 
upon every acre, is entrapped and made available for use as 
plant food through the agency of leguminous plants, for 
which Crimson Clover and Cow Peas stand pre-emi- 
nent. They therefore lead as active agents in this valuable 
transforming process, and are regarded as veritable nitrogen 
traps. 
They both make abundant growth of plant and vine, con- 
taining a very high percentage of food values, and have ex- 
tensive root formation, preserving the nitrogen in the soil, as 
well as gathering large supplies from the air, and owing to 
their rapid decomposition when used as manurial crops, the 
nitrogen is speedily liberated, and thus made available for 
plant food. 
Another most valuable feature of these plants is that they 
have proven their manurial value to be as great when the 
crop is fed to animals and the manure saved and returned 
to the soil as when the whole crop is ploughed under as 
