THE GENESEE FARMER. 



301 



ami OQ some it was already finely biviided. The 

 system of cultivation wiiicli is j)ursiied is inter- 

 esting. The land does not strike one as being 

 particularly fertile, but rather of middling qiialiiy. 

 It consists of a light-colored sandy loam of con- 

 Mdcrable dej)th, and having some honlders strewed 

 i>ver it. But tkk xoil seems to he as suiUible to the \ 

 •fi-oKth of red chver as the limestone gravels of i 

 Irelanil are to the <n"<ivvtl) of gi-a.sses, auf 



lence its 

 'ertiiity is maintained by clover as our tiehls in 

 Scotland used to be by grass. The rotation that is 

 bllovved is usually clover one year and wheat the 

 lext. Tliere are few or no soils in Britain upon 

 ivhich clover would grow with vigor every second 

 rear ; but were it not for this property of many 

 )f the American soils, much less wheat wouhl be 

 •aised than at pieseut. On the light soils in this 

 •egion, I was astonished at the fine healthy plants 

 >f clover in the wheat stubbles. When the au- 

 umns are somewhat moist, a considerable growth 

 •f clover takes place before winter; but the farin- 

 rs do not like to pasture it too close. An intelli- 

 ;ent farmer informed me that the common clover 

 vould last for ten or fifteen years on these soils if 

 : was cut early in the season and not allowed to 

 eed. 



Mr. RussKix is right in supposing that we could 

 ot raise so much wheat if it were not for the fer- 

 ilizing effect of the clover. There has been much 

 iid about the exhaustion of our soils, but this one 

 'ling is certain: aa long as we can grow good 

 rops of clover, the soil is capable of growing, so 

 ir as the constituents of the plant is concerned, 

 ood crops of wheat. 



My advice to the farmers of "Western New York 

 as always been : " Raise your own clover seed, 

 ad sow it with an unsparing hand." You can not 

 lise too much clover. It is the grand renovating 

 rop of America. 



But having raised the clover, what shall we do 

 ith it? Formerly it was turned under as a ma- 

 ire for the wheat crop. It is so yet to a con- 

 ierable extent. But some of our best farmers 

 id it more profitable to eat it ofiTon the land with 

 eep, while others, like the veteran farmer of 

 jneca county, John Johnston, make it into hay 

 id feed it on the farm to sheep, returning the 

 aaure to the land. 



So far as enriching the soil is concerned, it makes 

 xy little diiference whether we plow under the 

 3ver or feed it to animals and apply the manure, 

 we plow in the clover instead of eating it off with 

 eep, we furnish the soil with a large amount of 

 rbonaceous matter. But this carbonaceous mat- 

 r is not needed for wheat. In fact, the wheat 

 3uld usually be better without it, as it has a teu- 

 ncy to retard the ripening of the crop. I think 

 at the immense quantity of clover which has 

 en plowed onder in this section has been one 



reason why our wheat crop lias been injured so 

 much by the midge. It has. undoubtedly a ten- 

 dency to make our wheat late. Had the clover 

 been eaten off on the land by sheep, or made into 

 hay and the manure returned to the land, I think 

 the wheat would have ripened ear.'ier; and it is 

 a well-known fact that if we could get our wheat 

 ten days earlier we should escape the midge. It 

 was at one time thought that the reason why Med- 

 iterranean wheat escaped injury from the midge 

 was because it is a bearded variety. It is now 

 known that this has nothing to do with the mat- 

 ter. It is simply because tiie Mediterranean is an 

 earlier wheat, and comes into flower before the 

 midge flies make their appearance. If we could 

 get a White wheat as early as the Mediterranean, 

 or a few days tarlier, it would be worth thousands 

 of dollars to this county. I am in hopes that such 

 a variety will yet be discovered. 



I recently heard an ex-President of this So- 

 ciety talking about our Wheat Show. "It was all 

 very well, perhaps," he said, but he thought " it was 

 not best to get up much of a wheat fever " ! If 

 he means that it is not desirable to sow as much 

 land to wheat as we did ten years ago, I agree 

 with him. But if he thinks we ought not to try 

 to raise wheat, I beg leave to differ with him alto- 

 gether. I hope and expect to see more wheat 

 raised in Western New York during the next 

 twenty years than at any former period. But I 

 believe this will be done by sowing less land instead 

 of more. 



A few days ago I received from Mr. Lawes, of 

 England, a summary of the results of his experi- 

 ments in growing wheat year aftei' year on the 

 same land with various kinds of manure and with- 

 out manure of any kind. In 1840 he set aside a 

 field of fifteen acres for the purpose of these ex- 

 periments. He sowed it with barley the first year, 

 the next year with peas, the next with wheat, and 

 the next with oats — all without manure of any 

 kind. He then divided the field into different 

 plots and sowed wheat. One plot was sown with- 

 out manure of any kind, and the others were 

 dressed with different artificial fertilizers, and one 

 plot with 14 tuns of barn-yard manure per acre. 

 The ashes of 14 tuns of wheat straw were sown 

 on one acre — or ra;her at that raLt j^er acre. The 

 aghes of 14 tuns of barn-yard manure were sown 

 on another acre. Other plots were dressed with 

 superphosphate and salts of potash, soda and mag- 

 nesia; others were dressed with salts of ammonia 

 alone and in connection with superphosphate, pot- 

 ash, soda and other mineral manures ; and the very 



