236 THE LURE OF THE LAND 



friability thus communicated to the soil affords a most happy 

 facility to the plow for turning its vast bed of vegetable 

 matter. 



Auxiliaries to clover powerfully accelerate its growth. The 

 peculiar property of clover to be improved by a top-dressing 

 of gypsum is another striking circumstance of its affinity to 

 the system of fertilizing land by its own covers. As its 

 growth is vastly increased by this top-dressing, it furnishes 

 reason to believe that the effect flows from a disposition com- 

 municated by the gypsum to the clover for imbibing atmos- 

 pherical food in its external parts, and so much as it thus 

 gains affords to the earth a double benefit. In some lands 

 clover will not live; recourse must therefore be had to other 

 measures of improving the land to endow it with a capacity to 

 produce it, and substitutes for clover should be sought out by 

 experience among the individuals of the vegetable world. 



These prophetic extracts from the writings of John 

 Taylor are taken from the Arator for 1810, and I am 

 indebted to Dr. John R. Page, of the University of 

 Virginia, for having had my attention called to this 

 most important matter. The extracts which I have 

 published are found in the paper presented by Dr. Page 

 to a Convention of agriculturists on January 29, 1883, 

 at Washington. This Convention was called by George 

 B. Loring, the Commissioner of Agriculture, and is the 

 parent of the splendid organization of the agricultural 

 and mechanical colleges and experiment stations of the 

 country which now wield so great a force for the im- 

 provement of agriculture. 



