nough to take up and evaporate the
large amount of water which fell during the wet season. Such a condition
of things rarely occurs in this country. We sow timothy with our winter
wheat, in the autumn, and red clover in the spring. After the wheat is
harvested, we frequently have a heavy growth of clover in the autumn. In
such circumstances I believe there would be comparatively little loss of
nitrogen.

In the summer-fallow experiments, which have now been continued for
twenty-seven years, there has been a great loss of nitrogen. The same
remarks apply to this case. No one ever advocates summer-fallowing land
every other year, and sowing nothing but wheat. When we summer-fallow a
piece of land for wheat, we seed it down with grass and clover. There
is, as a rule, very little loss of nitrogen by drainage while the wheat
is growing on the ground, but after the wheat is cut, the grass and
clover are pretty sure to take up all the available nitrogen within
the range of their roots. This summer-fallow experiment, instead of
affording an argument against the use of summer-fallowing, is an
argument in its favor. The summer-fallow, by exposing the soil to the
decomposing influences of the atmosphere, converts more or less of the
inert nitrogenous organic matter into ammonia and nitric acid. This is
precisely what a farmer wants. It is just what the wheat crop needs. But
we must be very careful, when we render the nitrogen soluble, to have
some plant ready to take it up, and not let it be washed out of the soil
during the winter and early spring.

We have much poor land in the United States, and an immense area of
good land. The poor land will be used to grow timber, or be improved by
converting more or less of it, gradually, into pasture, and stocking it
with sheep and cattle. The main point is, to feed the sheep or cattle
with some rich nitrogenous food, such as cotton-seed cake, malt-sprouts,
bran, shorts, mill-feed, refuse beans, or bean-meal made from beans
injured by the weevil, or bug. In short, the owner of such land must buy
such food as will furnish the most nutriment and make the richest manure
at the least cost--taking both of these objects into consideration.
He will also buy more or less artificial manures, to be used for the
production of fodder crops, such as corn, millet, Hungarian grass, etc.
and, as soon as a portion of the land can be made rich enough, he will
grow more or less mangel wurzels, sugar beets,