FORAGE CROPS. 347 



trict, I have often been struck with the remarkably healthy appear- 

 ance and good yield of wheat on land from which a heavy crop 

 of clover hay was obtained in the preceding year. I have likewise 

 had frequent opportunities of observing that, as a rule, wheat 

 grown on part of a field whereon clover has been twice mown for 

 hay is better than the produce of that on the part of the same field 

 on which the clover has been mown only once for hay, and after- 

 ward fed off by sheep. These observations, extending over a 

 number of years, led me to inquire into the reasons why clover is 

 specially well fitted to prepare land for wheat, and in the paper 

 which I have now the pleasure of laying before the readers of the 

 "Journal^ I shall endeavor, as the result of my experiments on the 

 subject, to give an intelligible explanation of the fact that clover 

 is so excellent a preparatory crop for wheat as it is practically 

 known to be. 



" By those taking a superficial view of the subject, it may be 

 suggested that any injury likely to be caused by the removal of a 

 certain amount of fertilizing matter is altogether insignificant, and 

 more than compensated for by the benefit which results from the 

 abundant growth of clover roots and the physical improvement in 

 the soil which takes place in their decomposition. Looking, how- 

 ever, more closely into the matter, it will be found that, in a good 

 crop of clover-hay, a very considerable amount of both mineral 

 and organic substances is carried off the land, and that if the total 

 amount of such constituents in a crop had to be regarded exclu- 

 sively as the measure for determining the relative degrees in which 

 different farm-crops exhaust the land, clover would have to be 

 described as about the most exhausting crop in the entire rotation. 



" Clover-hay, on an average, and in round numbers, contains in 

 100 parts : — 



Water X70 



♦Nitrogenous substances (flesh-forming matters) 1 5' 6 



Non-nitrogenous compounds 59'9 



Mineral matter (ash) 75 



lOO'O 

 * Containing nitrogen 1'5 



"The mineral portion or ash in 100 parts of clover-hay con- 



sists of- 



Phosphoric acid 75 



Sulphuric acid 4'3 



Carbonic acid 180 



Silica 30 



