156 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



assertion which has been made, that the part of the clover 

 crop remaining in the soil is as good as that which goes into 

 the barn, finds its jnstification in these figures. They show 

 with precision and in detail, what observing farmers have long, 

 vaguely Icnown. 



The reason of the truth of the old saying, that if you can 

 start clover, you can grow anything, is thus apparent ; and 

 we know further, from observation, that the habits of the 

 clover plant are such that we can often start on a course of 

 improving the soil with that plant when we could not with 

 what are commonly called our more valuable cereal grains. 

 Some years ago, I was in East Windsor, in this state, and I 

 was shown two fields, separated by a fence, one of which you 

 would call perfectly barren and useless ; on the other was a 

 growth of red clover a foot high, which I was told by Mr. S. 

 W. Bartlett of that place, had been brought up within twelve 

 months by the application of a bushel or two of plaster to the - 

 acre and turning in some sheep. I believe there was no seed 

 sown upon the field ; the plaster alone brought the clover in. 

 The plants were there in an undeveloped state, and I suppose 

 the plaster, by furnishing sulphuric acid and lime, both of 

 which are large ingredients in clover, supplied the two things, 

 or the one thing, it may hav-e been, which was necessary in 

 order to give the clover a chance to live. On the other side 

 of the fence, one or both of these substances was probably not 

 present in sufficient quantity to develop the starveling clover 

 plants and to start their deep roots into the soil ; but with 

 that start, there is no reason why that land could not be made 

 agriculturally profitable. It could never be converted into 

 such soil as the Genesee region or a western prairie, because 

 the original constitution or strength was not there ; but it was 

 a soil which might, by judicious management, be improved, 

 and brought up to a reasonable degree of fertility. It would 

 be hopeless to undertake to reclaim any such field as that by 

 the use of wheat grown for seed ; it might be done by rye cut 

 green, but it would be a much slower process than by clover. 

 The fields in that neighborhood had been cropped with rye 

 beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant. The plan had 



