163 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



I tell my brother farmers that I would pay half a dollar a bushel 

 for leached ashes if I could not get them for less. Some men may 

 say, "There isn't grass seed enough; it don't come up quick 

 enough." My experience is otherwise. I had an acre and a half 

 that I mowed two or three j'ears, and I got less than 600 pounds 

 to the acre, and only a June grass. Bought sixteen dollars worth 

 of leached ashes and spread it on this acre and a half in the fall. 

 There was scarcely any clover, but the next year it was a solid 

 mat of clover, both red and white. I cut that year over a ton to 

 the acre. The second year I got a ton and a half. I have mowed 

 it now five years, and this last year, I had over a ton to the acre 

 of good hay. That is all I did to it. I have tried barnj'ard 

 manure, but never have realized so much advantage from it, in 

 proportion to the cost, as from leached ashes. 



Sec. GooDALE. When clover is spoken of as a manurial agent 

 for the renovation of grass land, or the preparation of land for 

 wheat, the idea is very often advanced that.it should be plowed in 

 green. I am aware that this method is extensively practiced in 

 New York, and often with the happiest results ; but I have 

 known instances here where it has had a very injurious eflect, and 

 I wish to offer a caution, in case you turn in clover, not to do so 

 when it is very green, nor in very hot weather. Two or three in- 

 stances of the character to which I have referred, have occurred 

 nrar where I reside. The men had heard of the wonderful effect 

 of clover when turned in for manure ; and having heavy crops 

 which were badly lodged, they thought it a grand chance to test 

 the efficacy of clover for manure, and so that enormous burden 

 was turned under green, in very hot weather, and the conse- 

 quence was that the land was greatly worse for some years. As 

 they expressed it, " the clover fermented so violently that it soured 

 and poisoned the land." The fact is undoubted that following the 

 turning in of that heavy crop of clover, in hot weather, the land 

 was seriously injured. If the crop had been left for a month or six 

 weeks, and then turned in, the result, I believe, would have been 

 entirely different 



Now that we are speaking of clover, 1 will remark that those of 

 you who have obtained a copy of our last Report, will find in its 

 latter pages, an article by Dr. Voelcker, the well known chemist 

 of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, and who is perhaps 

 the most prominent man in his i:)rofession in the world. He has 

 made an exhaustive examination of this subject, and you will find 



