doubt."

"I think so," said Percy, "after seeing the crops here in the East.

"That's what I thought," continued the Secretary." A bumper crop,
the biggest we ever raised. Oh, they don't know how to raise corn
here in the East. They just grow corn, corn, corn, year after year;
and that will get any land out of fix. I found that out years ago in
Iowa. I am a farmer myself, as I suppose you know. I found you
couldn't grow corn on the same land all the time. But just rotate
the crops; put clover in the rotation; and then your ground will
make corn again, as good as ever."

"But I understand that clover refuses to grow on most of this
eastern land," said Percy.

"Oh, nonsense. They don't sow it. I tell you they don't sow it, and
they don't know how to raise it. It takes a little manure sometimes
to start it, but it will grow all right if they would only give it
half a chance. Why, for years the Iowa farmers said blue grass
wouldn't grow in Iowa. Yes, Sir, they just knew it wouldn't grow
there; and then I showed them that blue grass was actually growing
in Iowa,--actually growing along the roadsides almost
everywhere,--blue grass that would pasture a steer to the acre--just
came in of itself without being seeded. No, I tell you they don't
sow clover down here. They just say it won't grow and keep right on
planting corn, corn, corn, until the corn crop amounts to nothing,
and then they let the land grow up in brush."

"Now, I do not wish to take up more of your time," said Percy, "for