274 Statp: Board ok Agricultuue, &c. 



ble, although not wholly deprived of manure. T»jearno8s to 

 a railroad and a good market for hay puts temptation before 

 some men that is not easily resisted. They little suspect 

 that in every ton of clover hay they carry off there are 

 fifty pounds of lime, and other varieties of liay contain 

 more or less according to the kind. A crop of oats also 

 carries off a large percentage of lime. 



It is granted, say some, that the fertility of some farms 

 is decreasing ; how can it be restored ? Copious answers to 

 this question appear in the publislied reports of the 

 Board. Among them we find Professor S. W. Johnson, 

 of New Haven, Connecticut, who says: "The reason of the 

 truth of the old saying, that ' if you can start clover you 

 can grow anything else,' is apparent. Its groat value as a 

 fertilizer is accounted for in the vigor with which it appro- 

 priates food, botli from the soil and from the atmosphere. 

 It brings up, by its deep growing roots, the mineral wealth 

 of the subsoil, and leaves it in a place and condition to be 

 easily reached by the roots of suc(;eeding (irops." And Pro- 

 fessor Johnson refers to a table which shows that the weight 

 of the roots and stubble of clover is about three times that 

 of oats or wheat ; showing two lumdred and forty-six pounds 

 of lime in the ash of clover, against eighty-one pounds in 

 oats and seventy-two pounds in wheat, on one acre of land. 

 This method of brino-ino- the fertilizino- agent from the 

 subsoil all farmers are familiar with, and the use of the sub- 

 soil plow points in the same dii-ection. 



But what is the chief mineral fertilizer that is brought 

 within the reach of the roots of other crops? It is carbon- 

 ate of lime, seventy-five per cent, of which is found in shell 



