MANURING. 125 



not realize the advantage of growing clover for use on their 

 fruit. For two or three years I have been in the habit of 

 mulching my raspberries and blackberries heavily with green 

 clover cut in blossom, and I learned several very important 

 lessons from it, aside from its manurial value, which I consider 

 very great and cheaper applied in that way than I can draw the 

 manure from the village a mile distant. It retains the moisture 

 during the dryest season, brings it to the surface; it keeps the 

 weeds down, it keeps your fruit clean, and to my mind it is the 

 best thing we can use for our small fruits. 



C. H. Gordon: How would it do to sow clover in an orchard, 

 mow it down and let it lay a year or two and then plow it 

 down? 



Prof. Green: It would be all right, but it would be better to 

 plow it in, and better to feed the clover to animals and use the 

 manure. 



Mr. Thayer: I can get the manure for its hauling, a mile 

 and a half distant, but I make it a practice to raise as much 

 clover as I have fruit land. I have forty acres of clover and 

 thirty-five acres of small fruit. I cut an acre of clover and put 

 it on an acre of small fruit, and I believe it is cheaper than to 

 haul manure a mile and a half distant. The proper time to cut 

 the clover is when it arrives at blossom, and when you put it 

 down it lies there and makes a close, compact mass. 



Dr. Prisselle: How long will it remain moist? 



Mr. Thayer: It remains moist a good part of the season. 

 During the dryest portion of last season I would push the 

 clover aside and the ground would be moist as if it had rained 

 a day or two before. 



Prof Green : You simply make manure of the clover without 

 passing it through the animal? 



Mr. Thayer: That is the idea. As you lay your plants down 

 in the fall of the year, this clover holds together and makes a 

 very nice covering, and then in the spring of the year as you 

 raise the plants the clover breaks to pieces and you see nothing 

 of it, and by the time you are ready to mulch your plants again 

 there is not a particle of the old clover left. It all works into 

 the ground in spring. 



R. P. Lupton: In mulching your raspberries do you put it 

 all over the ground? 



Mr. Thayer: No, sir. My raspberries are planted seven 

 feet apart. I place the mulch two feet on each side and then 

 run the cultivator through. 



