80 . I^'TRODUCTIO]S■. 



cask from England, which, owing to some injury 

 sustained on the voyage was found uufit lor use. 

 'This unfortunate circumstance delayed his projected 

 experiment, which would have been the first on a 

 ]arge scale, ever tried in the state. It also prevented 

 an increase and distribution of the seed, until after 

 the war then existing between the colonies and the 

 mother country. 



In 1785, this same gentleman sowed eighty pounds 

 of clover seed on thirty-live acres of wheat braird, 

 an account of the success of which he sent to the 

 Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture. 

 To the combined efibrts of the members of this So- 

 ciety, whose President, the venerable Judge Peters, 

 one of the foremost men in Pennsylvania, if not in 

 America (at that time) in every useful Agricultural 

 improvement, the country is indebted in a great 

 measure for the introduction and distribution of 

 clover and gypsum. 



The seed of the common red clover, Trifolium 

 Pratense, or native red clover (so called in England) 

 also known by the name of marie grass, is believed 

 to be the kind first introduced. In the ^course of 

 time it passed into varieties, for we find in 1822, that 

 energetic and painstaking seedsman, Robert Sin- 

 clair, of Baltimore, describing a new variety. There 

 is, he sa3's, a species of clover, called the tall, or 

 saplin clover, which has the appearance of the com- 

 mon red, but is much taller and- coarser, ripens 

 about two weeks later, except its coarseness (which 

 may be corrected by sowing thick) I prefer it to the 

 CDmmonJkind for sowing with Timothy, as they ripen 

 together, and for improving poor land, it is much 

 the best as it aff'ords a greater covering to the land. 



