Value of Sods.--The character of the sods is a faithful index of the condition of the soil in any region adapted to grass. The value of heavy sods to a soil cannot be overestimated. They not only give to a farm a prosperous appearance, but our country's agriculture would be on a much safer basis if heavy coverings of grass were more universal. We do not hold the legumes in too high esteem, but the emphasis placed upon their ability to appropriate nitrogen from the air has caused some land-owners to fail in appreciation of the aid to soil fertility that may be rendered by the grasses. One often hears the statement that they can add nothing to the soil, and this is serious error. They add all that may be given in the clovers, excepting nitrogen only, and that is only one element of plant-food, important though it be. A great part of the value of clover lies in its ability to supply organic matter to the soil and to improve physical condition by its net-work of roots. Heavy grass sods furnish a vast amount of organic matter which not only supplies available plant-food to succeeding crops, but in its decay affects the availability of some part of the stores of potential fertility in the land. [Illustration: A Heavy Grass Sod in New York.] Prejudice against Timothy.--Timothy, among the grasses, is especially in disrepute as a soil-builder, and yet its value is great. The belief that timothy is hard on land is based upon observation of bad treatment of this grass. There is a common custom of seeding land down to timothy when it ceases to have sufficient available plant-food for a profitable tilled crop, and usually this is the third year after a sod has been broken. The seeding is made with a grain crop that needs all the commercial fertilizer that may chance to be used. Clover may be seeded also, and on a majority of farms it fails to thrive when sown. If clover does grow, the succeeding crop of timothy may be heavy. If clover does not grow, the timothy is not so heavy. The seeding to grass is made partly because a tilled crop would not pay, and partly because a hay crop is needed. It comes in where other crops cannot come with profit, and it produces fairly well, or very well, the first year it occupies the ground by itself. With little or no aid from manure or commercial fertilizer, it adds much to the supply of organic matter in the soil, and it produces a hay crop that may be made into manure or converted into cash.