C L O V B R. 



flowers. Water must be always supplied moderately, 

 and without excess of either moisture or dryness. 

 The layers, when taken off the stools, are first placed 

 in small sized pots, and usually shifted twice into 

 larger, before they are brought to flower. The most 

 perfect cleanliness, keeping free from weeds, and 

 defending against snails, slugs, earwigs, and woodlice, 

 are all indispensable through the whole course of 

 their growth. When the stems are advancing to 

 flower, they are often attacked by the green-fly or 

 aphides ; these must be banished by tobacco smoke, 

 or some other means not hurtful to the plants. 

 Props must also be fixed, to tie the stems to as 

 they advance in height ; and as several flower-pods 

 will appear on the same stem, all but the topmost, or 

 the two topmost, should be cut off; this is for the 

 purpose of encouraging the principal flowers to bloom 

 in greater beauty and amplitude. 



In order to assist the flowers to expand regularly 

 and handsomely, florists exercise certain manipula- 

 tions, which are exclusively their own ; these are 

 called hooping and cording. The calyx or flower 

 cup is liable to burst irregularly, that is, it will be 

 rent lower down on one side than on the other ; to 

 prevent this, two expedients are practised : the first 

 is causing the divisions of the flower-cup to open 

 equally, by assisting the backward ones with the 

 point of a penknife ; and the second is by hooping, 

 that is, by fixing a band of matting or soft string 

 round the middle of the flower-pod, by which means 

 the divisions of the calyx are made to burst regularly. 

 These precautions regulate the bursting of the calyx ; 

 and in order that the corolla, or coloured petals of 

 the flower, may be expanded laterally and symme- 

 trically, circular cards (having a hole in the centre 

 to embrace the calyx) are fitted on immediately be- 

 hind the spreading petals of the corolla, the card 

 acting as a support to the petals, which naturally 

 incline to fall back. By these means the petals are 

 exhibited in a plane ; their tints and the form of the 

 plant are seen to the best advantage, and when so 

 dressed up by the skill of the professional florist, are 

 certainly objects of great beauty. 



These practices are only followed by flower fan- 

 ciers, who exhibit their flowers at shows for prizes ; 

 and at which there is sometimes the most intense and 

 lively competition. 



CLOVER. The English name of several species 

 of the Trefolium of botanists. The botanical name is 

 given because the leaves are ternate, that is, three 

 leaflets on each footstalk. Some writers have sup- 

 posed that some one species of this genus is the 

 shamrock, or emblem of the Holy Trinity, the tria 

 juncto in uno, used by St. Patrick in explaining that 

 doctrine, when preaching to the first Christian con- 

 verts in the kingdom of Ireland. Others, and with 

 more reason, have suggested that the true shamrock 

 is the Oxalis acetosetta, or wood-sorrel, so common 

 everywhere in the groves of Ireland. It is true that 

 there are several species of trefoil indigenous to Ireland 

 as well as Britain, but none of them present the triune 

 character so symmetrically as the leaves of the wood- 

 sorrel ; and besides, many of the trefoils being agri- 

 cultural plants, they may have been originally exotics, 

 and naturalised since the time of the patron saint of 

 Hibernia. 



Three of the trefoils are the most valuable acquisi- 

 tions of the British farmer. Without them he could 

 not make meadows of his arable fields in the short 



space of two or three months ; without them he could 

 not secure large ricks of winter fodder from off fields 

 which, in the previous summer, had borne a heavy 

 crop of corn, and which will bear even a more valua- 

 ble burden of wheat in the summer following. These 

 clovers are the red, the white or Dutch, and the 

 yellow flowering or black-seeded trefoil. 



The red is the most luxuriant grower, and most 

 useful as a forage plant. It is either sown alone (at 

 the rate of about eight or ten pounds to the acre) or 

 mixed with rye-grass and a little of each of the white 

 and yellow sorts in the following proportions per acre, 

 viz., of red four pounds ; of white, Dutch, and yellow, 

 two pounds each ; and of rye-grass, three half-pecks. 

 These well mixed together are sown with great 

 regularity by experienced seedsmen, either immedi- 

 ately after barley or oats are sown and rolled down, 

 or upon young wheat in the spring. In the first case 

 one tine of the harrows covers the seeds sufficiently, 

 and when sown upon young wheat the roller only is 

 employed to bury the seed. 



When 'red clover is sown alone, one summer's 

 crops only are taken from it, because being a biennial 

 it yields little or nothing in the third year of its stand- 

 ing. When sown with barley it rises therewith in 

 the first year ; much of it is mown with the barley, 

 and makes the straw excellent winter fodder for beasts, 

 and the stubble affords good nibbling for sheep during 

 the cold season. In the second year it is fit to mow 

 for hay in June, and, if not depastured after that time, 

 a second crop may be mown and made into hay 

 about the end of September. But if the second crop 

 be reserved for seed, it is allowed to stand a month 

 longer. Soon as the second crop is cut or grazed off, 

 the clover-ley, as it is called, is immediately ploughed 

 and sown with wheat. Red clover does not prosper 

 if sown too frequently on the same field ; the farmer 

 therefore, in whatever course or routine of culture he 

 pursues, always endeavours to have the crops of this 

 clover sown at as distant intervals as possible. The 

 intervals under ordinary management are either four 

 or five years, that is, under the four or five course 

 shift ; but by sowing red clover alone in one course, 

 and the white and yellow sorts with rye-grass in the 

 next, lengthens the intervals to eight or ten years. 

 This, as well as all other sorts of herbage intended 

 for hay, should be mown just before they are in full 

 flower. 



The white or Dutch clover, otherwise called honey- 

 suckle, is a perennial, and an invaluable plant in all 

 pastures. And when a clover-ley is intended to re- 

 main down more than one year, an extra quantity of 

 this species, say five or six pounds, must be sown on 

 each acre. It is a creeping plant, hence the name 

 Trifolium repens, but when sown with the others it 

 rises to the height of fifteen or eighteen inches, and 

 makes excellent sheep hay. 



The yellow clover or common trefoil is also a 

 valuable agricultural plant, and for all purposes its 

 properties are much like those of the Dutch. It is 

 however of quicker growth, and, if sown on a clean 

 fallow in June, will be fit to be eaten off by sheep 

 before wheaUseed time, a circumstance of the greatest 

 importance to light land farmers. Besides the three 

 sorts of clover above mentioned, there is another 

 pretty extensively sown in laying down permanent 

 pasture. This is the Trifolium medium, or cow-grass ; 

 it resembles the red clover, but is a perennial, and of 

 a much more diminutive growth. It does not appear 



