OF THE RED CLOVER. 



S83- 



Much about this time our attention was particularly 

 directed to the improvements of Francis Maxwell, Esq., of 

 Gribton, a gentleman in this neighbourhood, who, several 

 years before, had commenced spade-trenching- and thorough- 

 draining on a very extensive scale. He had completed 

 seven or eight fields of large extent, but of the worst quality 

 on his estate, with thorough-draining and spade-trenching 

 fifteen inches deep. We had almost constant opportunities 

 of seeing the same fields for more than twenty years before 

 these improvements were commenced. None of them were 

 worth more than twelve shillings per acre, exclusive of the 

 local advantage which they possessed ; and others were of 

 the very worst description of land in the country. They 

 had at first been broken out of thin moor, with a cold and 

 retentive tilly subsoil. The crops which they had yielded 

 were very scanty, such as might be expected from such land. 

 The clover never deserved the name of a crop. The fields 

 had been limed in the first stage of their cultivation, and 

 also slightly after being trenched. The rotation of crops 

 taken after the improvements was first oats, then potatoes or 

 turnips, then barley or oats, all of fair quality, and at the 

 same time sown out with rye-grass, and red and white clover. 

 The healtbiness of the red clover, on some of the fields, was 

 very evident after the grain crop was cut, and also in the 

 rye-grass bay ; but the after-crop of the clover in October 

 seemed one solid mass, and in several parts was completely 

 lodged. These improvements on a large scale coincided 

 with some experiments we had been making on a small one. 

 That land which has been frequently cultivated, and which 

 has become clover-sick, may be benefited by deepening the 

 soil, and bringing a portion of those substances to the sur- 

 face, of which it is either exhausted by the repeated cultiva- 

 tion of the clover, or which have been carried down by rain, 

 is a fact every day receiving the additional testimony of 

 those who have had recourse to subsoiling ; and, although 

 the advantages of such operations are very evident on other 

 cro])S, on none is it more so than red clover. 



It may now be pro{)er to show how the alkalies are re- 

 stored to the soil, when rest or })asturage is substituted for 

 cultivation. All soils consist of disintegrated rock ; and 

 whether these changes may have been, in the first instance, 

 produced by some mighty cause, which produced more im- 

 mediate results than we see in operation at the present time, 

 agents are still constantly at work in the atmospheric 



