State Convention—Renovation of Soils. 
311 
taken, when two crops, and when three, or the seed-crop had been 
taken, each successive crop left the land richer in plant-food. Prac¬ 
tical, intelligent farmers agree and science demonstrates, that as a 
renovating crop there is no plant cultivated by us that equals red 
clover. 
Mr. Anderson: I was one of the original introducers of clover 
in this country. I have advocated clover from that day to this. I 
do not wish any of the farmers to think they can depend on the 
atmosphere to grow a crop of clover. Rolling the land is good for 
clover, and the clover will be large. If the land is poor the clover 
is small, and there is the same atmosphere in both cases. If you 
would have good clover depend on a good soil. I have no confi¬ 
dence in the atmosphere. You may suspend an onion in a glass 
jar within an inch of the water, and it will grow. Sow clover in 
the sand, water it, and it will grow, and so will corn and many 
other plants grow in that way. It is a foolish idea to say that it 
does not require good'soil to raise good clover as well as anything 
else. As I said before, do not depend on the atmosphere to raise 
good clover, but on good barn-yard manure, from good well-fed 
stock. Rotation of crops is a good thing. Put your ground one 
year in clover, one in corn, one in small-grain. Always seed down 
small-grain with clover. 
Mr. Clark, of Green: Those two papers are the very bed-rock of 
farming. I hold that any farmer who farms his land so that it 
grows poorer from one year to another is a poor farmer. That may 
be the case with a great majorit} r . I can not help it if it covers my 
case. If I cannot keep my farm so that it is as good at the end of 
the year as at the beginning, I am going to cease farming. Clover 
I consider the very turning point of the whole. I do not know 
how to farm without it. I agree with nearly all the papers read. 
I wish to disagree with Mr. Barland on one point. I saw, in the 
transactions a year or two ago, where he stated that clover was a 
biennial; that it did not grow after the second year. A year ago 
last summer I had two acres of clover. I plastered it. I had a 
good crop of hay. Being very dry I had a small crop of seed. My 
clover all killed out, so last year my clover was old clover. I went 
into the field to see whether they were new or old roots that were 
