Maryland farm needed was clover seed and live stock. Sheep
especially he knew to be great producers of fertility.

"He sowed the clover and grass seed and they germinated well. He
even secured a fine catch, but it failed to hold, as we say out
West. He tried again and again, and failed as often as he tried. He
showed me his best clover on a field that had received some manure
made from feed part of which was purchased, and that had also
received five hundred pounds per acre of hydrated lime, which he was
finally persuaded to use, after becoming convinced that
clover-growing on old abandoned land was not exactly as easy as
clover-growing on a 'run-down' farm of almost virgin soil in the
West."

"And was the clover good after that treatment?" asked Mr. West.

"No, not good," said Percy, "but in some places where the manure had
been applied to the high points, as is the custom of the Western
farmer, the yield of clover, weeds, and foul grass together must
have been nearly a half ton to the acre. Fortunately he waited to
fully stock his farm with cattle and sheep until he should have some
assurance of producing sufficient feed to keep them for a time at
least, instead of making the common mistake of the less experienced
farmer who goes to the country from the city, and who imagines that,
if he has plenty of stock on the farm, they must of necessity
produce abundance of manure with which to enrich his land for the
production of abundant crops."

"Well, now you'll have to show me," said the grandmother. "To my
way of thinking that's a pretty good kind of a notion for a farmer