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Vol. LVIII. No. 2604. 
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 23 1899. 
$1 PER YEAR. 
BUILDING UP SOIL AT HIGH PRESSURE. 
PAYING A PROFIT FROM THE START. 
Rich Feeding for Poor Land. 
Part II. 
HOW IT PAID.—With this sort of farming, done on 
Shares for several years, Mr. Osborn’s figures show 
thait in the six years from 1880 to 1885, inclusive, the 
profits, that is, the actual sales of crops less the cost, 
was $685.35. It must be remembered that in 1879, the 
field was worthless of itself; that is, if it had been 
plowed and planted without manure or fertilizer, it 
would not have returned the cost of cultivation. The 
dressings of fertilizer used at first were not heavy; in 
fact, Mr. Osborn now uses more fertilizer than he 
did then, even though the soil is in much better con¬ 
dition. The experiment that convinced him was with 
only 400 pounds per acre. It is true that 20 years ago, 
when potatoes sold for $1 a bushel, such profits were 
more easily made than is possible now; still the field 
now produces heavier yields of potatoes, and the cost 
of fertilizer has been reduced considerably. The 
knowledge, too, 
that with the 
aid of Crimson 
clover and rye, 
double the 
number of 
crops of pota¬ 
toes thus may 
be produced in 
five years, 
gives another 
advantage in 
favor of tut. 
present time. 
Of course it 
would have 
been possible 
to take this 
same field and 
buy stable ma¬ 
nure in the 
cities, and pro- 
duce large 
crops. It would 
also have been 
possible to 
plow the 
ground, sow it 
to rye, using 
potash and 
phosphoric 
acid, and plow 
the rye under 
for corn, and 
keep up this slow process of restoration. With the 
long haul from the railroad, the stable manure proc¬ 
ess would have been far more expensive than the use 
of fertilizers. The chemical and green manure 
process would have been cheaper, but on the basis of 
figuring the difference between the expense and in¬ 
come there is no reason to believe that either of the 
other methods could compare in this case with the 
high-pressure method of starting at once with heavy 
dressings of complete fertilizer. 
Mr. Osborn’s business took him away from the 
farm a number of years, but he has now come back to 
take hold of it again, and I was much interested in 
learning whether his methods of handling this field 
had been changed greatly by the changes in condi¬ 
tions. The Connecticut farmer finds his business 
largely upset by the swift changes of the past 20 
years. The West is now pouring food into his old- 
time markets, the trolleys are running by his farms, 
the labor system has been upset; in fact, there has 
been a revolution in Connecticut agriculture. Mr. Os¬ 
born has come back to the farm after years spent in 
another business, and finds great changes not only in 
the methods of handling the soil, but in the distribu¬ 
tion and selling of crops. It is surprising to find that 
his ideas of soil cultivation and crop production, as 
applied to this old field, are much the same as those 
of 20 years ago. He is still using heavy dressings of 
the same fertilizer, still producing much the same 
crops, although the introduction of Crimson clover 
has done away largely with the growth of grain and 
grass. 
SEEDING TO GRASS.—This field is now covered 
with an excellent growth of rye, which was seeded 
after late potatoes. The late potato crop in Connecti¬ 
cut is dug so late that it is not safe to follow it with 
Crimson clover, for that crop requires an early seed¬ 
ing in order to secure a fair stand for the Winter. 
This rye will be plowed under next Spring for corn. 
Mr. Osborn now likes to 'have the soil covered through 
the Winter with some growing crop, as he has decided 
that in this way nitrogen is saved, while the soil is 
kept in better condition when plowing under the 
green crop. On another part of the farm I noticed 
a growth of common Red clover in the cornfield. Mr. 
Osborn says that he frequently sows Red clover at 
the last cultivation of the corn, and usually obtains a 
fair crop from it; in fact, his method of seeding to 
clover and grass is very different from that of Mr. 
Clark of Higganum. Readers will remember how 
Mr. Clark advocates working the land at least 15 
times with a plow and harrow, before the grass seed 
is put in the ground. Mr. Osborn goes into the corn 
after the last hoeing, and sows the Timothy and 
clover right among the stalks. The shade of the corn 
enables the little grass plants to make a good start, 
although the seed must be put in just at the right 
time, in order to get a fair crop. I saw one meadow 
seeded in this way last year, from which a fair crop 
of grass had been cut. It was impossible to tell where 
the corn rows had been, for this Spring the roller 
was run over the field and the stubs leveled down. In 
this way it will be seen that Mr. Osborn gains one 
year over the fertilizer farmers who raise wheat as a 
nurse crop for grass, because the grass seed sown in 
the corn in this way gives a good yield the next sea¬ 
son, and thus shortens the rotation, for wheat would 
not pay on this Connecticut soil. 
WEEDER AND CRIMSON CLOVER—I asked Mr. 
Osborn what two things he found most useful on the 
farm, in coming back to it after his years of absence. 
He said the improved weeder and Crimson clover. 
The use of the weeder has almost entirely changed the 
old methods of caring for the crops. They use it so 
that the cultivator is hardly considered necessary. 
The weeder is kept running constantly up and down 
through the crops, and in this way the weeds are 
largely kept down. With the use of the hand hoe in 
addition the fields are kept very clean. Mr. Osborn 
says that he would rather have four acres of potatoes 
well cared for, than twice that area left to grow up in 
weeds and foul grass. With regard to Crimson clover, 
Mr. Osborn tells this story, which is characteristic 
of many efforts to start the plant. He supposed that 
it was much the same as the common Red clover, not 
remembering that it is an annual. He sowed it with 
the oats, just 
as he would 
the Red clover. 
It came up 
after the oats 
were cut, made 
a beautiful 
growth, and 
bloomed just 
about as the 
Red clover 
does. He 
thought that 
he had a fine 
thing, and that 
of course the 
field would be 
full of it the 
following 
Spring. In¬ 
stead of that, 
of course hard¬ 
ly a plant of it 
was to be seen. 
It is an annual 
plant, and 
after it makes 
its seed it 
never revives, 
any more than 
corn or beans 
would do. Mr. 
Osborn expect¬ 
ed that, like 
Red clover, it would grow on through two seasons. 
Many farmers have had this same experience, and 
when the clover failed to grow the second time, they 
denounced it as a fraud, and considered that they had 
been cheated, forgetting that the clover had far more 
than paid for itself by its Summer growth. In our 
experience it is always a mistake to sow this clover 
in the Spring. The proper use for it is as a Winter 
cover crop, and probably the corn crop is the best 
place to start it. Mr. Osborn now sows it in the corn, 
so that, when following with potatoes, it can be 
plowed under to furnish humus and a certain amount 
of nitrogen. 
HIGH-GRADE FERTILIZER—I asked Mr. Osborn 
whether the continued use of this clover would make 
much Change in his use of fertilizer. After some 
thought he said that it would probably result in his 
using less fertilizer in quantity, but that he would not 
use a poorer quality. What he meant was that he 
would always use a high-grade fertilizer in connection 
with the clover. He does not take the view which 
TWISTING IXTLE FIBER INTO TWINE. Fig. 322. See Page 882. 
