88 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



" One who has never performed the experiment will be aston- 

 ished if he will carefully dig up a plant of red clover so as to 

 preserve all the roots. He will find them penetrating far below 

 any depth reached by his plow, and spreading laterally, so as to 

 fill a wide space of earth with a complete network of organic 

 matter. More than half the weight of a red clover plant is 

 under ground, and is seldom taken into the account when we 

 calculate the manurial value of a full crop of clover turned under 

 with the plow. By repeating this process every third year, pre- 

 ceding a wheat crop, even a soil badly exhausted in organic mat- 

 ter may, in a few years, be made rich in vegetable mold. To 

 produce the best results with clover on an exhausted soil, it will 

 be necessary to apply a liberal top-dressing of gypsum and bone- 

 meal every spring. By this means the activity of the vegetable 

 forces is greatly increased, and the amount of vegetable matter 

 to be plowed in, both top and root, will be correspondingly large. 

 The effect of this on stiff clay soils will be to render them more 

 brittle and easily pulverized, and to increase their power to 

 absorb moisture and gases from the air. These properties con- 

 stitute the leading features in the physical conditions of a fertile 

 soil; and a soil brought into this state will need only the proper 

 mineral elements to give it a high fertility." 



It is evident from the next sentence that Prof. Brown un- 

 derstands practically not only the importance of a mellow soil, 

 but also that the use of clover will produce this desirable 

 condition : 



"There is no more direct road to this desirable state than 

 by green manuring with clover. Practical farmers, who are the 

 best observers of facts, and who too seldom inquire into the 

 causes which lie behind these, all concur in the maxim that the 

 mellowest soil they cultivate is that which follows a heavy clover 

 crop plowed in. All this, however, presupposes that the clay 

 soil has been properly relieved of water by underdrainage. 

 Without this no soil can be made permanently mellow. 



" The influence of clover on the mineral elements of a soil is 

 that in which its chief manurial value lies. Professor Way 

 gives us an analysis of the clover plant in all its parts root, 



