THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



301 



CROYDON FARMERS' CLUB. 



The usual monthly meeting of this Club was held at the 

 King's Arms Inn. The chair was taken by Mr. Steuniug, the 

 presiflent, when Mr. C. Hunt, of Mitchara, read the following 

 paper on — 



THE GROWTH AND CULTIVATION OF CLOVER. 

 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,— Tho subject I am about 

 to address you upon this evening — viz., the Cluver Plant — is so 

 well known to all of you present— its merits as an article for sale, 

 its nutritive qualities as fodder for your cattle, its productiveness 

 as a crop, its highly beneficial properties as an alterative to the 

 soil, and, above all, its sitsrling worth as a profitable return for a 

 small outlay— are so generally kno^vn, that I should only be 

 wasting your time, as well as my own, to comment upon it. My 

 object in addressing yoa this evenine is to endeavour to throw 

 out for your instruction some practical hints and information, 

 and to glean, in return, from your discussion, valuable 

 knowledge for myself. How often do we hear farmers say, " I 

 cannot grow clover upon my land, my soil is clover-sick ; or such 

 and such a field will not grow clover more often than once in 

 six or seven years ?" I am sure, gentlemen, you will bear me 

 out in what I have asserted, that very often some one or other of 

 the above-named remarks are made, and that such remarks are 

 true is beyond a doubt, and that such a disease as clover-sickness 

 is prevalent in soils is equally true : the disease seems generally 

 known, and no doubt is considerably felt by many ; but although 

 such is the case, how seldom Is the remedy sought for or applied ! 

 It is not so with yourselves, or with those near and dear to you. 

 You are no sooner ill than you take steps to cure the sickness, 

 either by consulting a doctor, or taking prescribed medicines for 

 your disease ; and yet, although some of your complaints are in- 

 curable, I have no hesitation in saying this clover-sickness, and 

 other complaints of the soil, are easily cured by the proper appli- 

 cation of those pills and potions which that great physician of 

 agriculture— chemistry — has prescribed for us, and that great dis- 

 penser of medicine. Nature — has furnished us with, in the form of 

 manures, plants, and drainage, the right and proper use of which 

 furnish a remedy for all the ills that land is heir to ; and perhaps 

 never was the worth of these remediej made more apparent than 

 upon the subject of my paper, the Clover Plant ; and it is my 

 intention this evening to prescribe for you a few simple remedies 

 for the cure of its sickness, and the better cultivation of this 

 most useful plant. Although clover is, to a great extent, an ex- 

 hauster of the soil, yet I will venture to say that of all crops 

 grown upon a farm, there are none which enrich the soil more 

 for after-crops ; and, however strange this may appear, seeing 

 that clover contains double as much nitrogen, three times more 

 potash, seven times more lime and magnesia, and half as much 

 »gain phosphoric acid than any of the cereals, yet it does not ex- 

 haust the soil so much, and for one simple reason— because of its 

 close leafy nature, it so covers the soil as to prevent the evapora- 

 tion of the humus from it, and the chief property contained in 

 this humus is nitrogen, which with the ceieals, and many other 

 crops, is drawn from the soil by the sun. You will find in a diy 

 season that the soil where your corn crops grow will be hard and 

 dry, while on your clover-ley the ground will be moist ; that 

 moisture being caused by the leaves of the clover preventing its 

 evaporation. Well, then, you may perhaps ask, if it so enriches 

 the soil, liow is it that we cannot grow it oftener ? I answer for 

 this reason, that where such is the case, it is because you do not 

 crop right, or manure the sujceeding crops properly. How often 

 do I see the ruinous and absurd principle carried out of succeed- 

 ing a clover-ley with winter beans, then turnips drilled amongst 

 them in the spring, followed by wheat or oals, 'and either tares, 



Potash. 



lOlbs lOlbs. 



6 .... 8 



11 .... 4 



rye, turnips, or potatoes; then wheat, oats, or barley, and again 

 clover I Perhaps, in the first instance, the clover was cut twice 

 without being manured. The beans followed the same fate, or 

 perhaps had a sprinkling of worn-out, dried-up dung, entirely 

 destitute of ammonia, by its having evaporated away, and gone 

 to benefit some other person's land when the next shower of rain 

 comes; then tlie turnips were drilled between the leans; nil was 

 their dressing, and they were fed off without the sheep hiving any 

 oilcake or hay; then came the wheat or oats, nothing for them — 

 the sheep left plenty of dressing behind them (absurd to think of 

 dressing after that). Again, some used-up dung for the rye, or 

 tares, or whatever it may be next. They are fed off, or cut for 

 greenmeat, and the turnips which follow get some more dung, or 

 perhaps a little guano or superphosphate, and they are again fed 

 off. Then comes the wheat, oats, or barley, and again clover, 

 only three years and a half between the making up of the original 

 clover-ley and sowing the ground again with it. Can an% one 

 wonder that after this treatment clover should only grow a scanty 

 crop ? The only wonder is that any grows at all, for when we 

 come to look at the analysis of the different crops grown m suc- 

 cession, we then see how it is that the clover grows so bid. Here 

 is an analysis of 600 lbs. weight of each of these plants : — 



Nitro- Phospho- Tj-,,.h Lime and 

 gen. ric Acid. ^°^^^"- Magnesia. 



Clover lOlbs..... Slbs. 



Beans 10 .... 3 . 



Turnips 9 .... 4 J . 



Wheat.Oats, Bar- 

 ley, on an av'ge .5 .•,. 2 .... 3 .... 2 



Potatoes 8 .... 4 .... 12 .... 6 



Tares the same as Clover nearly. 



You will see by tiiese figures that the most important constituent* 

 of the soil— nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash — have been 

 worked upon to a great extent ; and the ground not supplied 

 with a proper equivalent in manures, or crops, the two first- 

 named constituents, nitrogen and phosphoric acid, are the least 

 in the soil, for in the richest soils they only bear a proportion of 

 a l,O0Dth part of the soil, while in many soils they are only in the 

 proportion of a lO.OODth part; you will therefore see that the 

 system of cropping I have named must exhaust the land, unless 

 properly supplied with manure, and entirely divest it of those 

 important constituents. With these facts before us, it is surpris- 

 ing that so many complain of not having good crops of clover, 

 and that they cannot grow it every fourth year! But if they 

 cannot grow it once in four years, I am sure they cannot in seven 

 years, for the last period of that field's condition must be worse 

 than the former. If the ground is so exhausted in four years, 

 what must it be in seven, unless a different system is carried out, 

 and more cereals and more manure supplied than in the previous 

 period? Clover, like all leguminous plants, abstracts an immense 

 deal of lime and sulphur from the soil, and this is the chief cause 

 why its failure occurs so often. Unless there is a certain amount 

 of those constituents in the land, you can never grow clover well. 

 It is true the system of cropping I have before named is included 

 with this, as that is a very important reason for its failure; but 

 still, if a better system of farming was adhered to, you could not 

 then grow it so often nor so well without you supply your ground 

 with those ingredients which clover extracts so bountifully from 

 it. In all soils there is more or less lime, but in sulphur and 

 phosphoric acid some are wholly deficient, and where this is the 

 case we must supply them, if we wish to properly cultivate those 

 plants whose natures require such support for their growth. 

 Science has revealed to us the wants and requirements of all the 

 plants we grow, and has also furnished us with the knowledge of 

 the food required for their sustenance and vigorous growth, and 

 it is our fault if we do not make the proper use of such know- 



