YALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 115 



most need. It not only increases the crop, but up to a certain 

 point, accelerates early maturity. (If we get too much am 

 monia and a moist, cloudy summer, it has an opposite effect 

 but there is not much danger of our getting too much am 

 monia.) On the other hand, the carbonaceous matter, forming 

 four-fifths of the clover, is of little fertilizing value, and, cer 

 tainly, on the majority of soils, is not needed by the wheat 

 crop, while it has a tendency to produce too much straw, and 

 to retard the ripening processes. 



These remarks will apply, also, in some degree, to poor, 

 strawy, leached, weathered manure. There is not enough 

 ammonia in a ton of such stuff as many farmers call manure 

 to make hartshorn enough for a lady's smelling-bottle ! ! ! 

 Instead of plowing in so much clover for wheat, then, let us 

 convert it into wool and mutton, and if we can give our sheep 

 peas, or beans, or oilcake in addition, it will tell wonderfully on 

 the manure, and on the crops to which it is applied. 



In preparing heavy land for wheat, it is still necessary, in 

 many cases, to resort to summer-fallows. On the light soils 

 we might take a crop of beans, planted in rows and thoroughly 

 horse-hoed, and sow wheat afterwards. On heavier soils I 

 have seen an excellent crop of wheat follow a crop of peas, 

 which had been sown instead of fallowing. The great draw 

 back to the peas is, that they are affected by the bug. But if 

 fed out early to hogs, the bugs do not injure them materially, 

 while they are very fattening and make rich manure. You 

 can commence feeding them to hogs on the land, while the peas 

 are still green. In England wheat is generally sown on a one 

 or two-year old clover sod, the land being plowed immediately 

 before sowing. As a general rule, this practice does not suc 

 ceed here, because, for one reason, we sow a month earlier than 

 they do in England, and a clover field plowed here the last of 

 August is generally so dry that the seed wheat does not ger 

 minate evenly ; and it is found, too, that the wheat is overrun 

 with weeds and grass the next season. I think, however, if 



