the clover was turned under, we usually got good wheat. This
is fact, No. 2. On these two facts, hang many of our agricultural
theories. We may state these facts in many ways. Still, it all comes to
this: Clover is good for wheat; plaster is good for clover.

There is another fact, which is a matter of general observation and
remark. You rarely find a good farmer who does not pay special attention
to his clover-crop. When I was riding with Mr. Geddes, among the farmers
of Onondaga County, on passing a farm where everything looked
thrifty--good fences, good buildings, good garden, good stock, and the
land clean and in good condition--I would ask who lived there, or some
other question. No matter what. The answer was always the same. "Oh! he
is another of our clover men." We will call this fact, No. 3.

And when, a year afterwards, Mr. Geddes returned my visit, and I drove
him around among the farmers of Monroe County, he found precisely the
same state of facts. All our good farmers were clover men. Among the
good wheat-growers in Michigan, you will find the same state of things.

These are the facts. Let us not quarrel over them.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE CHEAPEST MANURE A FARMER CAN USE.

I do not know who first said, "The cheapest manure a farmer can use
is--clover-seed," but the saying has become part of our agricultural
literature, and deserves a passing remark.

I have heard good farmers in Western New York say, that if they had a
field sown with wheat that they were going to plow the spring after the
crop was harvested, they would sow 10 lbs. of clover-seed on the wheat
in the spring. They thought that the growth of the clover in the fall,
after the wheat was cut, and the growth the next spring, before the land
was plowed, would afford manure worth much more than the cost of the
clover-seed.

"I do not doubt it," said the Deacon; "but would it not be better to let
the crop grow a few months longer, and then plow it under?"

"But that is not the point," I remarked; "we sometimes adopt a rotation
when Indian-corn follows a crop of wheat. In such a case, good farmers
sometimes plow the land in the fall, and again the next spring, and then
plant corn. This is one method. But I have known, as I said before, good
farmers to seed down the wheat with clover; and the following spring,
say the third week in May, plow under the young clover, and plant
immediately on the furrow. If the land is warm, and in good con