GRASSES, MEADOWS, ETC. 119 



they cease to yield adequate support to one, the soil may 

 still be rich in those which will give luxuriant growth to others. 

 Thus, two or more of the forage plants, when growing toge- 

 ther, may each yield a large crop, swelling the aggregate 

 product far beyond what would be realized in the separate 

 cultivation of either. This is a conspicuous and satisfac- 

 tory illustration of the utility of good husbandry, as shown in 

 the cultivation of the mixed grasses and forage. 



Time for cutting and mode of curing Clover. Clover 

 should be cut after having fully blossomed and assumed a 

 brownish hue. By close cutting, more forage is secured, and 

 the clover afterwards springs up more rapidly and evenly. 

 The swath unless very heavy, ought never to be stirred open, 

 but allowed to wilt on the top. It may then be carefully 

 turned over, and when thus partially cured, placed in high 

 slender cocks, and remain till sufficiently dry to remove into 

 the barn. Those who are very careful in curing their hay, 

 provide cheap cotton covers (tarpaulins are better), which 

 are thrown over the cocks when exposed to the rain, the 

 corners of which are weighted, to prevent being blown up 

 by the wind. The long exposure of clover to the weather, 

 when -thus cured, renders this precaution peculiarly desirable. 

 The clover may be housed in a much greener state, by spread- 

 ing evenly over it in the mow, from ten to twenty quarts of 

 salt per ton. Some add a bushel, but this is more than is 

 either necessary for the clover, or judicious for the stock con- 

 suming it ; as the purgative effects of too much salt, induce 

 a wasteful consumption of the forage. A mixture of alter- 

 nate layers of dry straw with the clover, by absorbing its 

 juices, answers the same purpose, while it materially im- 

 proves the flavor of the straw for fodder. 



After-management of Clover fields. The second crop of 

 clover may be either saved for seed, mown, pastured, or 

 turned under for manure. As this is a biennial when allow- 

 ed to ripen, the stocks generally die after the second year ; and 

 the crop is only partially sustained afterwards, by the seed 

 which may have germinated the second year from the first sow- 

 ing, or from such as has been shed upon the surface, from the 

 seed matured on the ground. The maximum of. benefit deriva- 

 ble to the soil, in the manure of the stubble and roots, is at- 

 tained the second year ; as we have seen that the dried roots 

 of the clover at that time, are sometimes in the proportion of 

 56 for every 100 pounds of clover hay produced from them 

 in two years. But the ground is then so full of the roots, as 



