The Story of the Soil; from the Basis of Absolute Science and Real LifeHopkins, Cyril G. (Cyril George)
Science
The Story of the Soil; from the Basis of Absolute Science and Real Life
Hopkins, Cyril G. (Cyril George)
Soils
"Now I had arranged with the tenant the first year, before we went
on there, to seed down a certain field. It had been under the plow
for some time. I wanted it seeded so I could have some land to mow
and he seeded half of it. It was only a little lot, about five
acres. He seeded half with timothy and left the other half. That was
his way of doing things, anyway. When we moved onto the farm later I
naturally wanted to finish that seeding and get that field in some
sort of shape for mowing. I went to my next neighbor, who lives
there yet, and asked him what I had better use. I didn't know
anything, practitically, about farming, and he advised me to try
some clover seed. He said: 'So far as I know, none was ever sown on
that farm. They have sowed timothy everlastingly, everybody, because
it is cheap. I knew timothy wouldn't grow there to amount to
anything If I were in your place I would try some clover.'
"I got the land prepared and sowed that clover alone, so as to give
it a chance. I did have sense enough to mow off the weeds when they
got six or eight or ten inches high perhaps, so that the clover
could have a little better chance to grow. It happened to be a very
wet season. I remember that distinctly. This was a lot near to the
barn. I suppose what little manure they had hauled out had been
mostly put on this land. With these favoring conditions the result
was fairly good. Of course not half what we got later, but we got
quite a little clover and when I came to mow it, and to mow that
timothy at the other end, I could see I could draw the rake two or
three times as far in the timothy as in the clover. There was more
clover on an acre. A load of timothy would go in and a load of
clover. When I fed it to the cows in winter I noticed when feeding
clover for a number of days they gave more milk. I didn't know why.
I don't know as anybody knew why then. There wasn't an experiment
station in the land. We were following our own notions. But the cows
gave more milk; I could see that plainly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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