456 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



CLOVER AS A FERTILIZER. 



Notwitlistanding the present report is already larger than usual, 

 I do not feel warranted in delaying for a year to present to the 

 farmers of Maine the important information contained in the fol- 

 lowing paper from the Journal of the Eoyal Agricultural Society 

 of England. 



If it be a demonstrated fact, as appears from the results of Dr. 

 Voelcker's investigations, that we have at command a fertilizing 

 agency so cheap and easy as the culture of clover, whereby we 

 can supply our soils, to a good extent, with what has hitherto 

 been the scarcest and dearest of manurial elements, (namely, 

 available nitrogen,) the importance of the fact can scarcely be 

 over-estimated ; and its extensive introduction for this inirpose 

 may mark an important era in the history of agriculture in our 

 State. 



The use of clover as a fertilizing agency is no novelty. It has 

 been long and successfully employed not only in foreign lands but 

 in our own country, especially in Onondaga county, N. Y. (See 

 last years' report, page 132, 153.) But the results have often 

 been attributed to some peculiar fitness for particular soils where 

 success attends its use. I deem Dr. Voelcker's investigations 

 especially valuable because they enable us to see, by the light of 

 science, and thus to comprehend and to realize how and to what 

 degree, and without limitation to special localities, this agency 

 may be usefully employed by ourselves on our own farms. 



There is no doubt that clover has been, unintentionally, used as 

 a fertilizing agency by the farmers of Maine to an extent which 

 themselves are quite unconscious of. In the progress of agricul- 

 ture it is a common occurrence for practice to*be ahead of science 

 in point of time. The experiments and observation of practical 

 men often enable them to adopt methods which may be, properly 

 enough, called empirical, but which, at the same time, are based 

 on fa(^s of nature, on true principles, and are, therefore, excellent 

 and successful methods. And the farmer does well to follow such 

 methods, although science may not be able to explain the princi- 

 ples which govern the results. But when, at length, science 

 grasps the facts, and can explain and set forth tlie principles, she 



