CLOVER AS A PREPARATORY CROP FOR WHEAT. 457 



is able also to show how the same principles may guide in other paths, 

 and to other methods, with equal safety and equal success. 



No practice is more universal among us than the sowing of 

 clover with grass seeds. It came to be extensively adopted 

 because it was found to be successful practice. It was not done 

 because of a general conviction that the clover manured the grass. 

 But a failure to comprehend the reason did not affect the result. 

 Without the knowledge of the farmer, the clover does, in fact, so 

 enrich the soil that he obtains larger crops of Timothy and red top 

 than he could get without it, and the clover fodder besides. 



The requirements of grass, so far as manure is concerned, are 

 so nearly identical with those of wheat, that if a farmer has land 

 capable of yielding good crops of grass, he may be almost as sure, 

 other conditions being equally favorable, of being able to harvest 

 from it good crops of wheat. 



On the Causes of the Benefits of Clover as a Preparatory Crop 

 FOR Wheat. By Dr. Augustus Voelcker, Chemist to the Royal 

 Agricultural Society of England.* 



Agricultural chemists inform us, that in order to maintain the 

 productive powers of the land unimpaired, we must restore to it 

 the phosphoric acid, potash, nitrogen, and other substances which 

 enter into the composition of our farm-crops ; the constant removal 

 of organic and inoi'ganic soil-constituents by the crops usually 

 sold off the farm leading, as is well known, to more or less rapid 

 deterioration and gradual exhaustion of the land. Even the best 

 wheat-soils of this and other countries become more and more 

 impoverished, and sustain a loss of wheat-yielding power, when 

 corn crops are grown in too rapid succession without manure. 

 Hence the universal practice of manuring, and that also of con- 

 suming oil-cake, corn, and similar purchased food on land naturally 

 poor, or partially exhausted by previous cropping. 



Whilst, however, it holds good as a general rule that no soil can 

 be cropped for any length of time without gradually becoming 

 more and more infertile, if no manure be applied to it, or if the 

 fertilizing elements removed by the crops grown thereon be not 

 by some means or other restored, it is nevertheless a fact that 

 after a heavy crop of clover carried off as hay, the land, far from 

 being less fertile than before, is peculiarly well adapted, even 



* It may be proper to say that, having noticed several errors in the paper as originally 

 published in England, a doubt arose whether other errors, not so readily detected, might 

 not also have escaped the notice of the proof-reader. This doubt was confirmed by a 

 reply to a note addressed to Dr. Voelcker, who kindly furnished all the corrections 

 necessary, and which are here incorporated into the text. s, l. g. 



