CLOVER CULTURE. 145 



decomposed. He can use nothing that will interfere with the 

 cultivation of the smallest and most delicate plant. It is> 

 different, however, with the farmer. He can employ a rota- 

 tion in which the clovers of some kind form a prominent part, 

 that will supply him with available forage, and also diversify 

 his crop, while storing his soil with the fertility needed ina 

 the future. Two years ago one of the ablest scientists inn 

 Europe said to a convention of Scottish farmers, in substance, 

 that it was folly for them to invest pounds, shillings and ' 

 pence in nitrogen where they could grow clover and other 

 legumes. In view of the recent discoveries to which we have 

 alluded in the previous chapter, it is high time for some one,, 

 in whose judgment they have confidence, to tell the eastern , 

 farmers the same truth. If, for any reason, the clovers 

 cannot be grown, other legumes, such as beans and peas, can. 

 A soil is poor indeed that will not grow beans, and the fact 

 that a comparatively barren soil will grow paying crops of a 

 food rich in nitrogen, itself should suggest to the practical 

 farmer that when the scientists affirm that beans, so rich in 

 nitrogen, are largely independent of the soil for their supply, , 

 they are but confirming the experience of his life-time. In i 

 fact, the most that scientific investigation has done in recent: 

 years is to explain the paradox of twenty centuries, viz : That 

 the clovers and other legumes, while furnishing a large 

 supply of nitrogenous food, at the same time actually increase 

 the supply of available nitrogen in the soil. When stated/ 

 as a distinct and separate proposition, it seems incredible^ 

 When offered as the rational explanation of an agricultural 

 paradox, it solves a mystery that has puzzled the student of 

 agricultural science for centuries. The eastern farmer who . 

 has spent large sums annually for nitrogen in the form of 

 commercial fertilizers, cannot do a wiser thing than to 

 investigate this subject and learn how he cannot only reduce^ 

 the expense of cultivating his land, but successfully under- 

 take to restore abandoned lands without beggaring himself tc 

 purchase nitrogen. Clover culture, however, means far, 

 more to the western farmer than it does to his co-laborer ina 

 the Atlantic and Middle states. He has at least two great 

 and distinct advantages, his soils are not made up from the 

 decomposition of the rocks of the immediate locality. In: 

 many districts in the eastern states the soil is deposited. 

 in situ ; that is, it has been formed by the decomposition of: 

 the rocks lying immediately over or under it. Some of these 

 may be rich in potash and poor in phosphoric acid, and others 

 rich in the latter but poor in potash. The sub-soils of > 

 large portions of the western states are the result of glacial 



