XXXIV. THE CLOVERS 



"Now, Cousin Clover, tell me in mine ear; 

 Go'st thou to market with thy pink and green? 

 Of -what avail, this color and this grace? 

 Wert thou but squat of stem and brindle-brown, 

 Still careless herds would feed." 



Sidney Lanier (Clover), 



"Knee-deep in clover" is a purely agricultural figure of 

 speech. No one who has seen the pigs or the heifers turned 

 out into a clover-field of a summer morning, will need to be 

 told that it signifies complete and unalloyed satisfaction. 

 Nor does it mean merely pleasures of the palate, even for 

 the beasts ; for they gaze on the clover, sniff at it and take 

 deep breaths, and lie down and roll in it. Doubtless there 

 was clover in Eden. 



There are many kinds of clover, and they are of varying 

 utility to us. Of all groups of cultivated plants, there is 

 hardly another that is intimately bound up with so many 

 agricultural interests. Clovers furnish green forage, both 

 for pasture and for soiling. They furnish hay hay that 

 sets a standard of quality for all other hay; hay so rich in 

 proteins, it needs to be diluted with other forage for ordinary 

 feeding; and that, alone, is ground and used like meal. 



The clovers also supply fertilizers to the soil, especially 

 nitrogenous fertilizers: directly, when plowed under and 

 decomposed; and indirectly, through the action of the 

 nitrogen-gathering bacteria that live in the nodules on their 

 roots.' The practice of rotation of crops depends for its 

 success largely on the' work of the clovers in replenishing 

 the supply of available nitrogen in the soil. Both by the 

 deep penetration of their roots, opening up the hard subsoil 

 to the ingress of air and water, and by the materials they 

 contribute in their decay, they leave the soil in better condi- 



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