458 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



without the addition of manure, to bear a good crop of wheat in 

 the following year, provided the season be favorable to its growth. 

 This fact, indeed, is so well known that many farmers justly re- 

 gard the growth of clover as one of the best preparatory opera- 

 tions whi'ch the land can undergo in order to its producing an 

 abundant crop of wheat in the following year. It has further 

 been noticed that clover mown twice leaves the land in a better 

 condition, as regards its wheat-producing capabilities, than when 

 mown once only for hay, and the second crop fed off on the land 

 by sheep ; for notwithstanding that in the latter instance the fer- 

 tilizing elements in the clover crop are in part restored in the 

 sheep excrements, yet contrary to expectation, this partial resto- 

 ration of the elements of fertility to the land has not the effect of 

 producing more or better wheat in the following year than is 

 reaped on land from off which the whole clover crop has been 

 carried, and to which no manure whatever has been applied. 



Again, in the opinion of several good practical agriculturists 

 with whom I have conversed on the subject, land whereon clover 

 has been grown for seed in the preceding year yields a better crop 

 of wheat than it does when the clover is mown twice for hay, or 

 even only once, and afterwards fed off by sheep. Most crops left 

 for seed, I need hardly observe, exhaust the land far more than 

 they do when they are cut down at an earlier stage of their 

 growth ; hence the binding clauses in most farm leases which 

 compel the tenant not to grow corn crops more frequently nor to 

 a greater extent than stipulated. However, in the case of clover 

 grown for seed we have, according to the testimony of trust- 

 worthy witnesses, an exception to a law generally applicable to 

 most other crops. 



Whatever may be the true explanation of the apparent anoma- 

 lies connected with the growth and chemical historj'- of the clover 

 plant, the facts just mentioned having been noticed not once or 

 twice only, or by a solitary observer, but repeatedly, and by num- 

 bers of intelligent farmers, are certainly entitled to credit; and 

 little wisdom, as it strikes me, is displayed by calling them into 

 question, because they happen to contradict the prevailing theory, 

 according to which a soil is said to become more or less impover- 

 ished in proportion to the large or small amount of organic and 

 mineral soil-constituents carried off in the produce. 



Agricultural experiences contradicting prevailing, and it may 

 be, generally current theories, are, unless I am much mistaken, of 



