76 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



for winter wheat; the land may be used the second year for pasture the whole season if not 

 wanted for wheat, and put into corn or any other crop the next. 



He also has stated that he had a field which for seventy-four years had been manured 

 with nothing except clover, grown upon it and plowed in, and that this field had produced 

 wheat, corn, oats, barley, and grass. The clover thus used had for fifty years been regularly 

 treated with gypsum, and that the land is constantly increasing in fertility. Sufficient tests 

 have been given clover as a fertilizer, when plowed under, to prove that it can be used con 

 tinuously on many soils for a long period with good results, many farmers considering it a 

 good substitute for barnyard manure. If it can be thus utilized, it proves a great conven 

 ience for use on such lands as are at a distance from the farm buildings, where the carting of 

 yard manure would be attended with considerable labor and expense. As clover will pro 

 duce two or three crops during the season, many farmers cut the first for hay, and plow under 

 the second for manure, while others secure both crops for hay, and plow under merely the 

 stubble and roots, which are accounted by many as equivalent to a good dressing of stable 

 manure; but, of course, the greater the quantity of this fertilizing material that is left in the 

 soil the greater will be the fertilizing properties of the soil resulting from the system of green 

 manuring, and the sooner other conditions being equal will the entire crop used for this 

 purpose restore and enrich the lands upon which it is used. Some recommend sowing buck 

 wheat with the clover seed. As we have never practiced this method, we cannot give the 

 result of it from experience. Clover should be plowed under when perfectly green, having 

 attained a good growth ; and most farmers consider the best time for doing this to be when 

 in full blossom ; it should then remain undisturbed until the proper time for sowing grain or 

 planting other crops. 



Yarious Crops for Green Manure. Next in value to clover, buckwheat is thought 

 by many to merit a place, and to be nearly equal to clover in fertilizing properties. It can 

 be easily sown and raised, and requires but a short time for growth; hence, where a crop of 

 wheat, rye, or barley has been removed it is especially adapted to the purpose. It also shades 

 the ground well, keeping it cool, and thus lessens the evaporation of its fertilizing gases and 

 renders it mellow, while it keeps down the weeds. It thus furnishes a very good substitute 

 for clover. 



Winter rye is also valuable for green manure. It should be sown early in the fall, and 

 a further growth given it in the spring before turning it under. 



Corn also sown broadcast is highly valued by many for this purpose. 



The wonderfully valuable properties of the cow-pea, as a renovator of poor soils, are well 

 known in the South, where it is considered the best of vegetables for this purpose. It grows 

 luxuriantly and rapidly, producing two crops in a season, and will thrive on very poor land, 

 but the crop will be greatly improved by the application of about a hundred pounds of plaster 

 per acre. 



It should be turned under when most of the pods are about half -grown, and none are 

 near being ripened. 



Dr. Pollard, late Commissioner of Agriculture in Virginia, gives \he following directions 

 relative to improving partially -exhausted lands in the Southern States, by the use of vegetable 

 manures: 



&quot; By husbanding all animal manures, and sowing peas and clover, we can obtain a large 

 amount of nitrogen for the soil. It may be said that a considerable portion of our lands are 

 too poor to produce clover or even a crop of peas. Then let two hundred pounds of ground 

 South Carolina phosphate, and three hundred 1 pounds of kainit (Dr. Ravenel s ash element ) 

 be applied to the land, and peas- be seeded ; turn these under and sow clover with wheat, or 

 oats if thought best, and we shall be apt to get a stand of clover, particularly if the land be 

 limed after the peas are turned under. But the clover will do better by itself than with 



