On the Failure of the Red Clever. 327 



farmers have given over sowing red clover, while the white clover 

 is very often only half a crop ; and upon the oolites and other 

 light soils of the new red sandstone and of the coal district, red 

 clover, owing to frequent losses of the crop, is only sown once 

 every twelve years. An inquiry, therefore, into the general and 

 extensive causes of the failure of this plant, and consequent loss to 

 the farmer, cannot but be of advantage. 



In a paper read before the Yorkshire Agricultural Society last 

 year the causes of failure, at the time of sowing and during the 

 summermonths, have already been pointed out, and it is concerning 

 the failure of the clover- crop after harvest to which the following 

 remarks will be more particularly directed. In this case the crop 

 after harvest is always good, but dies away during the months of 

 October, November, December, January, February, and March, 

 the lands on which this occurs being denominated ''clover sick" 

 from a supposition of the too frequent repetition of that crop. 



The committee of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society in tiie 

 report of last year directly ascribe the failure to the exhaustion of 

 some food required by the clover. They say, ''Mr. Thorp has 

 collected a great mass of evidence to prove that on certain soils 

 clover may be grown at short intervals. The committee, on the 

 other hand, have shown that certain other soils will not grow io 

 with advantage oftener than once in twelve years. These appa 

 rently contradictory facts may be reconciled on the supposition of 

 the food of clover being exhausted.'' Mr. Legard in the same 

 report says — " On the much controverted question of clover- 

 sickness, my opinion is, that the soil is rendered unfit to produce 

 successive crops of this plant, either by excretions given out by 

 the roots, or by the exhaustion of certaiii constituents of the soil 

 by the plant itself." "^ 



In order, if possible, to ascertain whether the opinion of the 

 food being exhausted were correct or not, two samples of soil 

 were sent for analysis to Mr. Spence of York, a very acute 

 chemist, recommended by Professor Phillips. The samples were 

 taken from the same field about 10 yards apart, being upon the 

 lower bed of the magnesian limestone. This field is 16 acres, 

 one half of which had been seeds (that is white clover and rye- 

 grass) and the other half beans four years ago, the whole of which 

 last year was barley and red clover ; and both portions of the 

 field had previously been under the same management with re- 

 spect to crops and manures. After harvest the whole clover was 

 equally good ; but during the months from November to the 5th 

 of April the clover had, I may say, totally disappeared from the 

 portion which had four years before been " seeds," except upon 



* Report of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, 1841, p. 136. 



