CLOVER* CULTURF. 21 



true for the climate arid soil of Edinburgh, and to some ex- 

 tent true in the moister climate of the Eastern states, but it 

 is entirely misleading and false on the light soils and drier 

 climate of the West. Acting upon this advice Western farm- 

 ers have adopted the methods of surface sowing common in 

 Europe and in the Eastern states and have been grievously 

 disappointed. Clover sown on our own farms by this method 

 has failed to germinate the first year, and sometimes the sec- 

 ond, coming up as a full crop in the third year where the 

 ground has been undisturbed, and that for the simple reason 

 that the supply of moisture was deficient, for the lack of suf- 

 ficient covering in dry seasons. The clover simply waited 

 until there was sufficient moisture to secure germination. 

 Mr. Jethro Tull, an English gentleman who wrote a book on 

 Horse-Hoeing Husbandry, published in 1731, has a paragraph 

 which incidentally refers to the depth of covering, which is 

 worth quoting. Speaking of his experience in drilling plants 

 in rows for the purpose of using the horse-hoe, he says: U I 

 was formerly at much pains and at some charge in improving 

 my drills in planting the rows at very near distances and had 

 brought them to such perfection that one horse would draw 

 a drill with eleven shares, making the rows at three and one- 

 half inches distant from one another, and at the same time 

 sow in them three different sorts of seeds which did not mix 

 and these, too, at different depths. As the barley rows were 

 seven inches asunder, the barley lay four inches deep. A 

 little more than three inches above that in the same channels 

 was clover; betwixt every two of these rows was a row of san- 

 foin covered one-half inch deep. I had a good crop of barley 

 the first year; the next year two crops of broad clover, where 

 that was sown; and where hop clover was sown, a mixed crop 

 of that and sanfoin, but I am since, by experience, so fully 

 convinced of the folly of these or any other mixed crops, and 

 more especially of narrow spaces, that I have demolished 

 these instruments in their full perfection, as a vain curiosity, 

 the drift and use of them being contrary to the true principles 

 and practice of horse hoeing." 



It will be seen from the above that even in the moist cli- 

 mate of England clover succeeded well when covered almost 

 an inch deep, and the practice was abundant, not on account 

 of the failure to grow clover but because the narrow spaces 

 between the drills of the different seeds did not allow the 

 practical operation of the horse-hoe. In view of the import- 

 ance of this question at the present time in the Western 



