i J i / : : CVOVKR CULTURE. 



horizontally, and while these often reach to great depths, 

 much further than those who have not particularly investiga- 

 ted the matter believe, they penetrate to these depths only af- 

 ter having exhausted the fertility of the surface, and then in 

 seoarate rootlets, while the cultivated clovers go down with 

 along, straight tap-root, some of them, as the alfalfa, reaching, 

 under favorable circumstances, to a depth of eight or ten feet, 

 and sometimes from fifteen to twenty, while three to four feet 

 is by no means an uncommon depth to be reached by the or- 

 dinary red clover. The most striking difference between the 

 clovers and the other grasses is in their power to increase the 

 fertility of the soil, and in a way which has, until recent years, 

 been unaccountable on any known scientific principles. 

 This power is now believed to be shared by the entire family 

 of plants called Leguminosce, of which the best known cul- 

 tivated varieties in America are peas, beans and the clovers. 

 This mysterious power of enriching the soil, while at the 

 same time taking from it large crops of the highest feeding 

 value, has been well known to practical farmers ever since 

 agriculture had a history, and no doubt for a long time before. 

 We find Virgil, for example, more ttlian a century before the 

 Christian era, singing in the first Georgic: 



"At least, where vetches, pulse and tares have stood, 



And stalks of lupines grew (a stubborn wood) 

 The ensuing season in return may bear 



The bearded product of the golden year. 

 For flax and oats will burn the tender field 



And sleeping poppies harmful harvest yield. n 



Georgic i st, Dryderf s Trans. 



The fact that good" grain crops may be expected after a 

 crop of Legumes was as well understood in those far-off 

 days as it is now, and it is only in very recent years that scien- 

 tists have been able to offer any adequate explanation. Flax 

 seems to have had as bad a reputation as a soil robber as it 

 has now, and we suspect our modern wise men know as little 

 of the real reason as did the ancients. We find Virgil giving 

 directions as to sowing the legumes in the following: 

 ' u Sow beans and clover on the rotten soil, 



******* 



Vile vetches would you sow and lentils lean, 

 The growth of Egypt, or the kidney bean, 



Begin when the slow Waggoner descends, 

 Nor cease your sowing till midsummer ends." 



Ibid. 



