376 HANDY-BOOK OF HUSBANDRY. 



' a great waste of a hay crop, and a great loss of time, to manure 

 'with clover. Let us examine this point a little. 



"• A farmer has a fine meadow, consisting of the clover that 

 ' has grown from fifteen pounds of seed — not of the large ' pea- 

 ' vine ' kind, but of the smaller variety of red clover — and from 

 ' five quarts of timothy seed, sown on each acre, which has been 

 'treated to a dressing of gypsum (commonly, but very improperly 

 ' called plaster). This meadow is cut for hay, as soon as the 

 ' clover is in full bloom. A crop of two tons to the acre, of 

 ' this best of hay ^ should be secured. Another dressing of gypsum 

 ' is then sown, and unless the season is uncommonly dry, up 

 ' starts the clover, and generally by the first day of October, 

 ' in this latitude, there will be a crop of clover-seed averaging 

 ' three bushels to the acre, that should pay, over and above 

 ' all expense for labor, fifteen dollars. The timothy grass 

 ' will in this second crop make very little show, and if the clover- 

 ' seed is cut, as it should be, so high as to leave a large part of 

 ' the stalks on the ground, there will be enough left to about fill 

 'the furrow, if plowed that autumn. The next year a crop of 

 ' barley sown on the inverted sod, should give the highest yield 

 ' for that grain. One plowing turns up this decayed sod and 

 'clover, and a crop of wheat should give its best yield. Clover 

 'and timothy seed sown on that wheat, enables the farmer to 

 ' repeat the process. 



" I have supposed the land to be in good condition to begin 

 'with, and many years' experience justifies me in saying that 

 'it will be richer after these crops — four of them, in three 

 'years — have been taken off than it was before. But on this 

 ' point, I propose, presently, to introduce a witness, whose testi- 

 ' mony will have more weight than any thing I can say. I now 

 ' ask what time has been lost, and what has been sacrificed in the 

 ' way of a hay crop, or anv thing else, and what has been the cost 

 'of filling the ground with clover-roots, and the furrow with 

 ' clover-tops ? 



" But perhaps the owner of the land desires to do more in the 

 'way of increasing fertility than I have thus far supposed. Let 

 'him plow under, if he can find a plow that will do it, the 

 ' second crop of clover, and not cut his crop of seed. The crop 

 ' of hay will pay full interest on the land for one year, and the 

 ' barlev and wheat crops will do the same in their seasons. 

 ' What grain-raiser can draw from his own barn-yard so much 

 ' manure as this clover makes, for the cost of the clover and 

 ' timothy seed, and of the gypsum, and the sowing .? But does 



