“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.

“A little later I had an experiment forced on me by accident.  I tell you just how it came about.  It resulted in putting a good many thousands in our pockets and I hope millions in the pockets of the farmers of America.  Later I wanted to plant corn on this field, and, as I wanted to grow just as good corn as I could, I got out what manure we saved and put it on the land preparing for plowing.  I knew there wouldn’t be more than half enough to go over the field.  I said to myself, if there was any good corn, I would like it next to the road where people would see it.  Wouldn’t any of you do it?  I didn’t have a dollar to hire any help.  I paid one dollar that year for help, and it was awful hard to get that dollar.  I began spreading that manure next to the road.  The back half of the field was nearly out of sight.  When I got half way back there wasn’t any manure left and the back half didn’t get any.  Now it so happened that the timothy was on the front end of the field, and it got the manure.  The clover on the back half didn’t get any.  It came about in the simple way I told you of.  Naturally I didn’t expect much corn where I hadn’t put any manure, but what was my surprise to find it was just about as good on that clover end of the field without any dressing as on the timothy end with what I had been able to put on.  It is only right I should say there wasn’t much of the manure It was poor in quality because we couldn’t get grain for the cows when we couldn’t get enough for ourselves to eat.  There wasn’t much manure and it was pretty poor, but such as it was that was the result.  More hay to the acre, better hay, increased fertility, some way, by growing this clover!