PROCEEDINGS OF THE FAKMERs' CLUB. 325 



Mr. S. Edwards Todd. — The question at this season of the year 

 is, how old fields can be restored and how good fields can be kept 

 good. Not one farmer in five hundred sufiiciently values red 

 clover, not only as a forage plant, but as one that has power to 

 unlock hidden stores. Its influence is magical. It acts not only 

 on the surfiice, but it is a subsoiler. The long tap roots strike 

 deep and change barren earth into fine mould. There is no way 

 to restore old fields except by clover. Without it many old farms 

 would be abandoned. Some farms which produce poor crops, 

 even when new, yield largely after clover. It will grow and 

 mature where other grasses w^ould perish. Much of the despised 

 and uncultivated land of Long Island and South Jersey should be 

 brouo-ht into clover. 



Dr. Siiodgrass. — The hilly, slate lands of Maryland and Virgi- 

 nia have been made very fertile by the use of clover, but it was 

 in connection with plaster, for both were sown together. 



Dr. Hallock. — I had a piece of clover, and it was a question 

 whether I should cut it and carry it away or turn it under. 



Dr. Snodgrass. — The second crop is to be turned under, after 

 being once fed down. Then sow to wheat, then clover, and plas- 

 ter again. 



Mr. Carpenter. — A neighbor of mine restored a hill top, where 

 it was diflicult to haul manure, by sowing clover and turning it 

 under. The great advantage is to bury it green. It feeds deep 

 and does not exhaust the surface. 



Mr. Stevens. — Clover grows at a lower temperature than any 

 other grass, that is forty degrees, and has a month more to grow. 

 None other grows on such crude material, and requires less vege- 

 table mold. It produces thirty or forty tons of roots, which 

 might seem to be the main value of thfe crop, for not only do they 

 enrich but they make the soil porous. Cattle feeding on it impart 

 more fertility than they take away. 



Mr. R. J. Pardee said in central New York he had knoAvn 

 farmers to purchase a farm at thirty dollars per acre, and pay for 

 their entire farms in the production of seed for supplying the 

 markets. He said the manner of determining which kind of seed 

 would produce the large kind, was by asking the farmers when 

 they mowed the first crop. He said the big clover must never be 

 cut, if a crop of seed would be raised. The first crop of the small 

 kind, must be mowed the last of June or the fore part of July. 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter suggested that whatever is done with 



