VOL. LXIV
INDIANAPOLIS, JULY  10, 1909.
NO. 27
To Open the Question.
By Walter  S.   Smith.
Editors   Indiana  Farmer:
One of the largest land owners in
Rush county, a man as widely known
as any man in Indiana, a man who
farms and reads our Indiana Farmer
honored me the other day by asking
me to open for discussion the following question:
"Should a heavy growth of clover
fallow be plowed under, or shoulil it be
burned   off?"
He  said  his  men  wanted   to  burn  it
off, declaring they could do       .	
work enough better in the
breaking to justify the loss
of fertility. He insisted that
it be left on the ground and
subjected to the action of
the plow, and so it was done.
Will men who know by
experience tell which is the
metter plan?
As 1 am opening the debate, I will make the Tirst
speech.
1. When stubble or vegetable matter of any sort is
burned, we all know how
great the cloud of smoke.
This smoke is darkened by
particles of carbon, not
consumed. If smoke had
no color except that of
condensing steam, which
always appears white, it
would be no less loaded
with carbon, but, fully
burned, It would be carbonic dioxide, a gas of
great value to vegetables.
It enters their structure at
the root in solution by
water, and enters by the
leaves in gaseous form.
So    incineration sets free	
the highly valuable carbon,
and it blows away in the air, above the
leaves; and so is a total loss in that vicinity.
Plowed under, it is subjected to decay; which is the same as burning, but
much slower. And    when    carbonic
acid gas is produced under the ground,
it is exactly where the vegetable roots
want it, and they can take large portions of it while forming. And what
escapes into the air approaches the leaf
from the lower side, and there the
plant may feast on it again. So by
plowing matter under, we save this element as well as much nitrogen and
phosphorus, that can enter the. plant
only by the roots, in chemical combination and in solution in water.
2. Answering, in advance, the chief
objection, that it collects under the
plow beam in wads, and raises the plow
out of the ground, I would suggest two
or three ways in which that may be
helped: (1) Use the disc harrow
twice over the mass, as it lies in the
spring. This will cut some of it,
straighten some of it out and crowd
some down into the ground where the
rolling cutter can manage it.
(2) Run through it before the plow
with a common harrow. This will
draw it out of tangle, so the plow can
Pass thru it.
(3) If the cutters .and the harrow
teeth incline to drag it into wads, that
means that it is loose from the ground.
Then use a hay-rakfc. Get it up as we
rake up hay, and cart it off the ground
to  the  manure  pile. It can  be  re
turned  by the spreader.
3.     And finally,  there  are  two  kinds
of  breaking  plows. One  turns     the
surface over, and into the bottom of
the furrows. This is called covering.
This is not a bad way to turn it; but
some object to that as a hindrance to
the ascending of water by capillary action. I do not think there is much in
this objection. But, to avoid  it,  use
the   other  sort  of  plow. This   plow
lays the broken furrows on. edge instead
of turning it over and the surface under; so the harrows will thoroly mix
it.
The soil is favored as to drouth and
warmth of soil. I think it has no other
care than to hitch to the mower and
cut it. One-half mile north of- Dun-
reith on Aunt Caroline Edgerton's farm
she has four acres that are very promising, and as well set as any red clover
that I know of. It is on a well drained piece of sugar tree, walnut ani poplar land that she says she thinks she
has herself seen forty crops of corn
grown on. I was interested to know
how the land was prepared as I had
seen it come up and grow during the
dry fall last year when there was hard-
I'n.iii-i   Discrimination.
By Wm. B. Life.
Judging Horses in the  Coliseum,     Indiana       State     Fair.
My view is that it should be plowed
in and not burned off.
 s   m   s
Experience With Alfalfa.
Editors  Indiana  Farmer:
I have been an interested observer of
the efforts of some of our farmers to
establish alfalfa as a forage crop In
our county. Sometimes it has prom
ised well, and then again men have
given it up with one or two trials. Today I saw a small piece of ground that
is well set, and promises a good crop.
It is on Frank Bundy's farm, a half
mile north of Spiceland, on first bottom
sandy loam  land. It  has  been  cut
regularly about three crops each season, for the last seven or eight years.
It was established by Jason Newby, a
farmer and at present a citizen of Kansas or Oklahoma. He farmed here
for several years. I dug up a good
thrifty bunch of this clover about three
inches across, and found a. root about
three-quarters of an inch in diameter,
three inches under ground with six divisions, or separate stems or branches
at the top of the ground. I don't think
it will produce as heavy a crop this
year as common, but it has carried a
crop about equal to three crops of red
clover, and from appearance I can't tell
how much longer it may yield a paying
crop, if the roots are generally established as firmly as the one I dug up. It
has been pastured very little. I don't
remember just what preparation the
soil had, but nothing I suppose unusual.
ly a green thing to be seen. It was
broken up: clover sod in the spring of
1907, and sown to millet with the intention of taking off the crop of millet,
and sowing it to alfalfa in the fall. But
she was delayed in getting it drained
and manured as she desired, and it laid
over until last year and it was given a
light coating of manure, disked and
harrowed and thoroly prepared the
the latter part of July or August last,
and cross-sowed without any cultivation or inoculation of the soil or any
following treatment. It was sowed and
grew, in what looked to everyone that
saw it literally dry dust, in a torrid
sun. Of course she lost one crop, but
it was owing to not getting to sow it
after the millet was off. She said she
had faith that any ground that would
grow so good a crop of red clover as
that ground did would grow alfalfa,
and it certainly will. Remember it
was sown without any nurse crop, in
the middle Of the driest summer Indiana ever experienced. But unless you
get a good stand I don't think it will
pay to try to make a stand out of it
any better than it would a poor stand
of red clover. This ground by being a
good clover sod and followed by the
millet was not very foul. It slopes to
the south ten feet in 400, so it had the
full benefit of the sun.
Henry Co. J. G. H.
The season of 1909 will pass into history as the great rainy summer. Up to
July 6th we had an excess of 3.8 inches
at this station.
Editors   Indiana  Farmer:
I notice in your issue of May 29th, on
the editorial page, a statement to the
effect that two wardens of the Fish and
Game Commission went to a farm
house in Johnson county, and almost at
the point of a revolver compelled the
lady of the house to reveal the hiding
place of a    seine. Now    those  men
were no better than highway robbers;
they were outlaws in the fullest sense
of the term, and ought to be dealt witli
      in the same way.   'We had
a somewhat similar case in
our neighborhood last fall.
One of the residents had a
seine concealed o n his
premises and the Fish and
Game officers were notified
of ths1 fact laypersons living
in town. It afterwards
came out that the parties
who gave this information
had camped oh this man's
premises for several weeks
during the summer and
used a seine constantly. By
their betrayal of our neighbor, he had to pay between
$75 and $100.
Now the river winds
around and thru this man's
farm, yet he is prohibited
from catching a mess of
fish for his family table.
The city sports may camp
on his ground weeks at a
time and catch fish from
the same river and never
be molested. I have lived
on the banks of this river
for thirty years, and I
know what these summer
chaps do.
  Of course the commission will say the farmer
has the same chances as the
city fellow if he will fish at the season
given. But this is not so; the farmer
has not that chance. It is his busy
season, and he would lose his crops
if he should take the time to fish.
Another neighbor of mine was caught
last winter fishing in the ice, by two
officers of the commission. He had not
caught a single fish, but it cost him
$40 just the same.
I know some of the officers appointed by that commission, and they are
not fit to hold such positions; in fact
they ought to be put to work on the
stone-pile for some of their meanness.
The law that will not allow a farmer
to catch fish from a stream on his own
land, and yet allows city sports to take
them out by the wagon-load ought to
be wiped off the statute books, and the
men who made it put out of office. If
the land-owners and tenants were allowed to fish and hunt all they want
to, and the city sports restricted, our
rivers, lakes and streams would; have
plenty of fish all the time and the
woods plenty of game.
Wm. B. Life.
Randolph Co.
We never paid such prices for horse
feed  as  this  summer. Our   last   bill
from the feed store had the following
items: Corn, $1 per bushel; oats, 70c;
hay, $1 for 100 pounds; straw 40c per
100 pounds. The expense for keeping
the animal in feed at this rate i.s not
far from $2.50 per week.