On Clovers. 453 



Ox Clover Sickness. 



For some years we have lieard a great deal of land being 

 incapable of growing clover, or, as it is usually expressed, being 

 " clover sick," and it must be confessed that in some districts 

 there is an increased difficulty in growing clover. I am disposed 

 to attribute this difficultv to the fact that much of our seed is 

 derived from warmer climates, and perhaps from richer soil, but 

 principally to the mode of cultivation commonly adopted ; the 

 barley, sown at the same time, forcing it in the first year into a 

 weak and spindled young plant. The effect is much the same 

 as that pointed out bv our Dorsetshire Burns as the result of 

 allowing no playground for children. 



The children will soon have noo pleace 



Vor to play in, an' if they do grow, 

 They will have a thin musheroom feace, 



Wi' their bodies so sample as dough. 

 But a man is a meade ov a child, 



An' his limbs do grow worksome by play. 

 An' if the young child's little body's a spoil'd, 



"Why the man's wull the sooner decay. 



Now if this be so where so many years follow as a corrective 

 to the cramping system, can it be wondered that the second half 

 of the history of the plant should be affected by the smothering 

 and drawing up of the first half. 



The mischief is augmented in the second year by the growth 

 of weeds, not only in those native to the soil, but those too often 

 sown with the seed. 



Some years since I instituted a series of inquiries into this 

 matter, and then found that samples of clover seed as received 

 from different seedsmen were shamefully dirty. Like other 

 inspectors of nuisances I received no small amount of ill-will for 

 my pains, but I have sufficient reward in the fact that for the 

 last five years I have not met with such dirty samples as I then 

 exposed, although within this year I have examined as many 

 as fifty specimens, obtained from both " large and small " 

 seedsmen, and have others in hand. 



For some years at Cirencester we kept up plots of different 

 clovers, and found that when drilled and kept clear of weeds, 

 the annual red clover would keep a good plant for three or four 

 years, and that by digging and sowing again, a good crop could 

 be got, and once we could point to beds of perennial clover that 

 had been kept up for as much as seven years in good condition. 

 Indeed I consider the common to be as nearly perennial as 

 almost any perennial plants. But if it be attacked by weeds 

 and parasites it will with difficulty be grown at all. 



