THE RED AND MAMMOTH~CLOVERS. 



CHAPTER III. 



There is, perhaps, no agricultural subject in which the 

 farmers, especially of the Western states, are more deeply in- 

 terested than the cultivation of these two varieties of clover. 

 In taking this deep interest they are but following in the 

 wake of farmers in other countries. The cultivation of these 

 clovers comes in everywhere, apparently, in the wake of the 

 soil-robber. After lands have been exhausted of their virgin 

 fertility, their owners begin to enquire how the lost fertility 

 can be restored, and no means has yet been discovered so cer- 

 tain and reliable as the cultivation of red and mammoth clo- 

 ver. The Western states are now where the Eastern states 

 were forty or fifty years ago, and where England was in 1633. 

 In Sir Richard Weston's report on the Husbandry of Brabant 

 and Flanders, published by Hartlib in 1645, we have some 

 interesting statements as to the cultivation of clover at that 

 time, both with regard to its object and methods, from which 

 we quote as follows: 



"It thrives best when you sow it on the worst and barren - 

 est ground. The ground has to be pared and burned and un- 

 slacked lime added to the ashes. It is next to be plowed and 

 harrowed; and about ten pounds of clover seed must be sown 

 to the acre in April or the end of March. If it is intended to 

 preserve seed then the second crop must be let stand until it 

 come to a full and dead ripeness and it will yield at least five 

 bushels per acre. Being once sown, it will last five years; 

 and then being plowed it will yield, three or four years to- 

 gether, rich crops of wheat, and after that a crop of oats, with 

 which clover is to be sown again. It is in itself an excellent 



