CLOVER : ITS USES. 229 



their own seed, as is the case in my neighbourhood. 

 And if they raise it themselves, they think it costs 

 nothing ; they then sow liberally, and get a bounti- 

 ful return." The machine cost sixty dollars ; and it 

 would verily seem to be worth more than that 

 amount annually to the farmers of the neighbour- . 

 hood. 



In regard to the value of clover in keeping up the 

 fertility of the farm, Mr. Brewer considers it of the 

 first consequence ; for, says he, " I think I can ma- 

 nure my farm with clover cheaper than I can cart 

 manure from my own barnyard ; although I have it 

 all carried out in the spring of the year for my hoed 

 crops, while unfermented, because 1 think it. of more 

 value to have it rot in the soil than in the farmyard. 

 I do not wish to have it understood that I am an ad- 

 vocate of the miserable practice of leaving the ma- 

 nure in the barnyard, as many of my neighbouring 

 farmers do, to waste one half of its best qualities, 

 for I have my barnyard thoroughly cleaned every 

 year." 



One word as to the condition of the farm when it 

 came under Mr. B.'s management. The soil is de- 

 scribed as being a sandy loam, mixed with slate 

 gravel, and most of it very stony. When he went 

 on to it, remarks he, in 1830, " there were about fifty 

 acres of cleared land, and it was considered one of 

 the poorest farms in the town by my neighbours, 

 who assured me I could not get grass enough from 

 the farm to keep one cow. There was but two 

 acres of meadow upon it, and that was too wet to 

 plough. But this did not discourage me. I pur- 

 chased two and a half bushels of clover-seed the 

 first spring, which some of my neighbours thought 

 was enough to seed my whole farm, weeds and all ; 

 but I sowed it on sixteen acres." Such was Mr. 

 Brewer's beginning ; and the reader is already ad- 

 vised, that this spirited start has been followed up 

 for eight years with increasing advantage. The 



