288 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
ter of the farm raid team horses of the United 
Stales; and this Change, we doubt not, will 
eventually affect, directly or indirectly, our en¬ 
tire stock of useful or laboring, as distin¬ 
guished from pleasure or light driving horses. 
Walks and Talks on the Farm—Ho. 56. 
A few weeks ago an Ohio subscriber of the 
Agriculturist wrote me in regard to the best 
time to plow under clover for manure. I wrote 
him that I had little practical experience in the 
matter, but theoretically the best time was a 
Week or ten days earlier than it should be cut 
for hay. Dr. Voelcker’s investigations [Journal 
of the Royal Agricultural Society, Yol. 3, Part 
1, 1S67] indicate that when clover bursts into 
flower there is no further accumulation of nitro¬ 
gen, lmt that, on the other hand, there is a rapid 
formation of sugar and other nutritious carbon¬ 
aceous substances. To cut clover for hay, there¬ 
fore, as soon as it bursts into flower, would be 
a wasteful practice, but it is just the time to 
plow it under. We get no more nitrogen by 
allowing it to grow longer; and the more suc¬ 
culent it is, the more rapidly will it ferment and 
decay in the ground. I wrote to Mr. Geddes, 
one of the earliest and most enthusiastic advo¬ 
cates of clover, requesting his opinion on the 
point. In reply he said: “Plow under the 
clover when it is at full growth. But your 
question can much better be answered at the 
end of a long, free talk, which can best be had 
here. I have many times asked you to come 
here, not to see fine farming, for we have none 
to show, but to see land that has been used to 
test the effects of clover for nearly 70 years. 
On the ground, I could talk to a willing auditor 
long, if not wisely. I am getting tired of being 
misunderstood, and of having my statements 
doubted when I talk about clover as the great 
renovator of land. You preach agricultural 
truth, and the facts you would gather in this 
neighborhood are worth your knowing, and 
worth giving to the world. So come here and 
gather some facts about clover. All that I shall 
try to prove to you is, that the fact that clover 
and plaster are by far the cheapest manures 
that can be had for our lands has been demon¬ 
strated by many farmers beyond a doubt—so 
much cheaper than barn-yard manure that the 
mere loading of and spreading costs more than 
the plaster and clover. Do not quote me as 
saying this, but come and sec the farms here¬ 
abouts and talk with our farmers.” 
Of course I went, and had a capital time. 
Mr. Geddes has a magnificent farm of about 
400 acres, some four miles from Syracuse. It is 
in high condition, and is continually improving, 
and this is due to growing large and frequent 
crops of clover, and to good , deep plowing , and 
clean and thorough culture. 
We drove round among the farmers. “Here 
is a man,” said Mr. G., “ who run in debt $45 
per acre for his farm. He has educated his 
family, paid off his debt, and reports his net 
profits at from $3,000 to $3,500 a year on a 
farm of 90 acres; and this is due to clover. 
You see he is building a new barn, and that 
does not look aS Though his land was running 
down under the system.” The next farmer we 
came to was also putting up a new barn, and 
another farmer was enlarging an old one. 
“ Now, these farmers have never paid a dollar 
for manure of any kind except plaster, and their 
lands certainly do not deteriorate.” 
Prom Syracuse I went to Geneva, to see our 
old friend John Johnston. “Why did you not 
tell me you -were coming?” he said. “I would 
have met you at the cars. But I am right glad 
to see you. I want to show you my wheat, 
where I put . on 250 lbs. of guano per acre last 
fall. People here don’t know that I used it, 
and you must not mention it. It is grand.” 
I do not know that I ever saw a finer piece of 
wheat. It is the Diehl variety, sown 14th Sep¬ 
tember, at the rate of 11 bushels per acre. It is 
quite thick enough. One breadth of the drill 
was sown at the rate of 2 bushels per acre. 
This is earlier, “but,” said Mr. J., “the other 
will have larger heads and will yield more.” 
After examining the wheat we went to look at 
the piles of muck and manure in the barn-yard, 
and from these to a splendid crop of timothy. 
“ It will go 21 tons of hay per acre,” said Mr. 
J., “ and now look at tins adjoining field. It is 
just as good land naturally,.and there is merely 
a fence between, and yet the grass and clover 
are so poor as hardly to be worth cutting.” 
“ What makes the difference ” ? I asked. 
Mr. Johnston, emphatically, “Manure.” 
The poor field did not belong to him. 
John Johnston’s farm was originally a cold, 
wet, clayey soil. Geo. Geddes’ did not need 
draining, or very little of it. Of course, land 
that needs draining is richer, after it is drained, 
than laud that is naturally drained. And though 
Mr. Johnston was always a good farmer, yet he 
says he “never made money until he com¬ 
menced to drain.” The accumulated fertility in 
the land could then be made available by good 
tillage, and from that day to this his laud has 
been growing richer and richer. And, in fact, 
the same is true of Mr. Geddes’ farm. It is rich¬ 
er land to-day than when first plowed. And 
yet there is one field that for seventy years has 
had no manure applied to it, except plaster. 
How is this to be explained? Mr. Geddes 
would say it was due to clover and plaster. 
But this does not fully satisfy those who claim 
(and truly) that “ always taking out of the meal 
tub and never putting in, soon comes to the 
bottom.” The clover can add nothing to the 
land, that it did not get from the soil, except 
organic matter obtained from the atmosphere, 
and the plaster furnishes little or nothing except 
lime and sulphuric acid. There are all the other 
ingredients of plant-food to be accounted for— 
phosphoric acid, potash, soda, magnesia, etc. A 
crop of clover, or corn, or wheat, or barley, or 
oats, will not come to perfection unless every 
one of these elements is present in the soil in 
an available condition. Mr. Geddes "has not 
furnished a single ounce of any one of them. 
Where do they come from ? From the soil itself. 
There is probably enough of these elements in 
the soil to last ten thousand years; and if we 
return to the soil all the straw, chaff, and bran, 
and sell nothing but fine flour, meat, butter, 
etc., there is probably enough to last a million 
years, and you and I need not trouble ourselves 
with speculations as to what will happen after 
that time. Nearly all our soils are practically 
inexhaustible. But of course these elements are 
not in an available condition. If they were, 
the rains would wash them all into the ocean. 
They are rendered available by a kind of fer¬ 
mentation. A manure heap packed as hard and 
solid as a rock would not decay; but break it 
up, make it fine, turn it occasionally so as to 
expose it to the atmosphere, and with the prop¬ 
er degree of moisture and heat it will ferment 
rapidly, and all its elements will soon become 
available food for plants. Nothing has been 
created by the process. It was all there. We 
have simply made it available. So it is with 
the soil. Break it up, make it fine, turn it oc¬ 
casionally, expose it to the atmosphere, and 
the elements it contains become available. 
I do not think that Mr. Geddes’ land is any 
better, naturally, than yours or mine. We can 
all raise fair crops by cultivating the land thor¬ 
oughly, and bj r never allowing a weed to grow. 
On Mr. Lawes’ experimental wheat field the plot 
that has never received a particle of manure 
produces every year an average of about 15 
bushels per acre. And the whole crop is re¬ 
moved—grain, straw, and chaff. Nothing is re¬ 
turned. And that the land is not remarkably 
rich is evident from the fact that some of 
the farms in the neighborhood produce, un¬ 
der the ordinary system of management, but 
little more wheat, once in four or five years, 
than is raised every year on this experimental 
plot without manure of any kind. 
Why? Because thefee farmers do not half 
work their land, and the manure' they make is 
little better than rotten straw. Mr. Lawes’ 
wheat field is plowed twice every year, and 
when I was there the crop was hand-hoed two 
or three times in the spring. Not a weed is 
suffered to grow. And this is all there is to it. 
Now, of course, instead of raising 15 bushels 
of wheat every year it is a good deal better to 
raise a crop of 30 bushels every other year, and 
still better to raise 45 bushels every third 3 'ear. 
And it is here that clover comes to our aid. 
It will enable us to do this very thing, and the 
land runs no greater risk of exhaustion than 
Mr. Lawes’ unmanured wheat crop. 
Peart the butcher has been urging me for 
some time to raise early lambs for market. I 
told him that I thought of buying a thorough¬ 
bred South Down ram this fall, and picking out 
a lot of large Merino ewes to cross with him. 
“ Don’t you do it,” he replied; “ get a Leicester. 
The Leicester lambs are far better.” “ Is it not 
too violent a cross ?” I asked. “Not at all. 
Mr. A. got a Leicester from Canada and crossed 
him with common Merino ewes, and had great 
luck. I don’t believe he lost a single lamb, and 
they were splendid. They were the best I ever 
killed. • There is nothing will pay you so well. 
Mr. B. did the same thing with a South Down, 
and he had no end of trouble in lambing. The 
heads are so large; and after all, the lambs were 
nothing like as good as the grade Leicesters. 
You will miss it if you get a South Down.” 
I wrote to Mr. Samuel Thorne, who has had 
several years’ experience in raising grade South 
Down lambs for the butcher, asking his opinion 
on the point. He replies: “My own experience 
does not agree with that of Peart. I have had 
many South Down and grade South Dow n lambs, 
and never, to my knowledge, lost one owing to 
the size of the head in lambing. As j r ou know, 
the South Down has by no means a large head. 
Some of the other Downs have. I fancy Mr. 
P. has confounded the breeds. In using a Hamp¬ 
shire Down ram one season we had a great deal 
of trouble, and some loss from this cause. I 
never before heard any complaints of grade 
Downs not ‘-dying well ’; on the contrary, the 
New York butchers, as far as my acquaint¬ 
ance extends, prefer them to any other.” 
I think Mr. Thorne hit it exactly, and that 
the ram used by Mr. B. was a Hampshire Down. 
When at Geneva last week, I saw a fine lot of 
grade South Down lambs raised by Mr. Swan, 
from common Merino ewes, crossed with a thor¬ 
oughbred South Down, and he said he had had 
no trouble with them. On the contrary, he was 
delighted with the cross. They had all the marks 
and the general appearance of the South Down. 
