SECRETARY'S REPORT. 101 



disadvantage of not bearing a drouglit so well as the Red, owing, I 

 presume, to the fact that the surfaces of its leaves being less, and 

 thereby not extracting so much support and moisture from the 

 atmosphere during nights and mornings, as the other. It has a 

 much finer stalk and its roots are not so strong, nor do they strike 

 so deep, which may be the reason of its not standing the drouth so 

 well." He adds his belief, that it is quite as well adapted to light 

 as to heavy soils. From what I have been able to learn of this 

 variety, I deem it worthy of careful trial in Maine. 



I have already remarked that clover is not properly a o-rass, as it 

 belongs to an entirely different order, viz : — the Lcg7miinos(e, and 

 not to the GraminccB — this, to be sure, does not concern the farmer 

 who only desires a good crop of hay, but it is also true that the 

 botanical distinction is not more marked than are their different 

 requirements, for the proper grasses are greatly stimulated in growth 

 by the salts of ammonia, which produce little effect upon clover. 

 Clover, on the other hand, is greatly stimulated by the application 

 of mineral manures, as gypsum, phosphate of lime, &c., which 

 scarcely increase the growth of grasses at all. 



This fact was very distinctly brought out in a series of carefully 

 conducted experiments by Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert, reported in 

 the last number of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society o^ 

 England, and which were instituted to show the effects of different 

 manures on permanent meadow land. These were quite too extended 

 and elaborate to allow of even a brief abstract being given here, 

 but I quote a single paragraph, which will suffice on this point : 



" It will be shown in some detail in a subsequent section that the 

 description of the increase differed extremely. In fact, where the 

 ammoniacal salts were employed, the increase was exclusively due to 

 the increased growth of Grcwiinaceoiis plants — the so called Nat- 

 ural Grassos — there being scarcely a LegJiminous plant to be 

 found upon the plot. Where the purely mineral manures were 

 used, on the other hand, the grasses, properly so called, were 

 observed scarcely to have increased at all ; whilst the whole plot 

 was thickly covered with Perennial Red Clover, {!'/ i/allum pra- 

 lens&peremie,') and some other Leguminous plants. Such a result 

 is perfectly consistent with what has been before established regard- 

 ing the (so to speak) characteristic adaptation of mineral and nitre- 



