"Thirty Years of Chemicals 6 Clover” 
Editorial Notice American Agriculturist, March 13,1909 
CHEMICALS AND CLOVER 
“ ‘Thirty Years of Chemicals and Clover’ is the title of the latest 
booklet issued by the Mapes Formula and Peruvian Guano Com¬ 
pany, 143 Liberty street, New York City. It is written by Herbert 
W. Collingwood, and enthusiastically describes the soil improve¬ 
ment work at Lewis farm, near Cranbury, N. J. The story of 
what has been done on this farm reads like a fairy tale, so hopeful 
is the writer and so astonishing are the results obtained. And the 
beauty about the whole thing is the truth of the description. The 
farm actually exists; chemicals and clover actually did remake the 
farm; and $90,000 have actually been taken from this farm of 90 
acres during a 30-year period. How the work was done, what 
crops were raised, the rotation followed, the fertilizer used, and the 
role of each, is graphically described in the story, and so con¬ 
scientiously related and weighed as to convince even the most 
skeptical, and to bring a new meaning to eastern farming. What 
this man has done any eastern farmer can do; his experiment can 
be to your profit, and his experience your guide if you love farm¬ 
ing and seek higher yields, increased production and greater profits. 
This interesting, wholesome and practical booklet should be in the 
hands of every eastern and southern farmer who would have his 
farm plant do better by him.” 
Selections, Pages 7-8-20. (Total Pages, 32.) 
The Beginning' of Chemicals and Clover 
Mr. Lewis quickly saw both the advantages and the ’disadvan¬ 
tages of a New Jersey farm over a century old, compared with 
cheap new land 1,000 miles or more from the sea coast. The 
advantages lay in its nearness to market. The best buyers of farm 
produce were to be found in the towns and cities near the Atlantic. 
It was a short haul from his farm to them. The disadvantage was 
that on exhausted soil the cost of growing a bushel or pound was 
too high because the yield was small. Mr. Lewis saw that in order 
to make farming pay in New Jersey he must decrease the cost by 
increasing the yield. The problem was to know how to do it. 
Evidently the crops could not be increased on such soil unless it 
was heavily fed in some way. Stock feeding was not profitable. 
A few steers or sheep were kept to eat up the corn stalks but 
meat was being poured in from the West and careful figuring 
showed that it was more profitable to sell the hay in the city. The 
application of marl with little doses of fertilizer was like substi¬ 
tuting a full coffee pot for a full dinner pail. After much study, 
and some experimenting, in 1877, Mr. Lewis decided upon what 
was then a radical course—the heavy use of chemicals as a sub¬ 
stitute for stable manure. With the help and suggestion of Mr. 
Chas. V. Mapes, he developed the system which for more than 
thirty years has enabled the farm to grow fat while yielding fat 
crops. The object was to supply a mixture of chemicals—one bag 
of which would supply more plant food than a ton of manure, 
provide everything and more than the manure contains except 
water and vegetable matter and leave the soil better than before 
it was used. How well this has worked out we may see by the 
figures on page 9. During the first four years that Mr. Lewis 
worked the farm and before he began using fertilizers even moder¬ 
ately the sales amounted to $7,555.32. During the next four years 
while the rotation was being changed the sales were $8,561.39, 
while during the last four years after thirty years of high culture 
the sales were $12,468.98. 
Starting' the New Rotation 
The tillable land was divided into five fields, each averaging 
about eighteen acres. A rotation was wanted which would bring 
potatoes on fresh ground each year, make the best use of the sod 
ground and diversify the crops so that there would not be likely 
to be a total failure of all. As we have seen, the former practice 
was to grow oats in place of potatoes. Mr. Lewis changed this 
and began using the year’s accumulation of manure on the sod— 
to be plowed under for corn. Then followed potatoes the year 
after corn, with all, or a large part, of the fertilizer used in the 
entire rotation of five years put on the potato crop. As soon as 
possible after the potatoes were dug the field in which they grew 
was to be fitted well and seeded to wheat with grass seed. In case 
of a very heavy crop of potatoes or in case the rotation brought 
the crop to the lightest soil, an extra dressing of fertilizer would 
be used in seeding the wheat, but under ordinary circumstances it 
was expected that the chemicals used on the potatoes would not 
only ensure that crop but provide a surplus for the wheat and 
the grass which followed it. As the system has developed more 
and more fertilizer has been used on all crops, even including the 
heavily manured corn. In the spring following wheat sowing 
clover was seeded on the wheat. The grain was cut at the proper 
time and then the grass cut for two years, after which the manure 
was put on the two-year-old grass field and plowed under for 
corn thus bringing the rotation around to potatoes once more. 
Starting with this system in 1877 Mr. Lewis has kept it up ever 
since, using the same crops and the same fertilizer—only more of 
h ;&11 through this period. The only change of method has been 
in the disposition of the corn stalks—circumstances making it more 
profitable to put them in a silo for feeding cattle. There have also 
been seeded three acres of alfalfa to feed the cows and help 
reduce the grain bill. 
Six Rounds of Rotation 
For over thirty years, or through six rounds of the rotation, 
Mr. Lewis has followed Chemicals and Clover. Crops have grown 
larger and more satisfactory and, year by year, the farm has grown 
more productive. In all these years only two changes have been 
made in the system. The stalks and wastes have been more 
thoroughly utilized and more fertilizer than ever is now used. 
.\o wonder Mr. Lewis now says that he can take any farm of 
moderately level land and bring it to a higher state of fertility 
by the use of chemical fertilizers. There is no doubt that he can 
take such a farm, start with corn and potatoes, heavily fertilized, 
and by the time the rotation has gone once around have fertile 
fields with a large amount of manure to go on the corn crop and 
an assured income from the farm. 
Even the man who expects to conduct a stock farm on rundown 
soil will make his best progress by using fertilizers heavily to begin 
with. 1 his will enable him to grow large crops of forage plants 
from the.start and thus provide manure for his fields. I know 
of a case in New England where a man was struggling on with a 
small dairy. 1 he farm was large but not productive and this man 
had the old idea that farm crops were limited by the amount of 
manure made on the farm. He learned, by accident, of this 
Chemicals and Clover system and decided to try it in part. He 
broke up old pasture land and planted corn—using fertilizer heavily. 
I hen he seeded oats and peas and clover, also using chemicals. 
I he result was a crop which filled his silo and stuffed his barn. 
It meant double the number of cows and twice as much manure 
as he would have had if he had not used the fertilizer. Mr. New¬ 
ton Osborne of Connecticut took very poor land which grew only 
weeds and briars and by using chemicals heavily brought that soil 
to fertility at a profit. It is said of him that he grafted corn 
and potatoes on briar vines with fertilizer for grafting wax. Hun- 
dreds and thousands of similar cases could be gfven to prove the 
statement that high-grade fertilizers can be made to take the place 
of manure either on farms where all crops are sold or on stock 
farms where an increase of manure is wanted. 
This pamphlet—" Thirty Years of Chemicals & Clover,” (32 pages), will be mailed free. Apply to 
The Mapes Formula and Peruvian Guano Co. 
143 LIBERTY STREET, NEW YORK 
Descriptive pamphlets mailed free. Branch, 239 STATE STREET, HARTFORD, CONN. 
