152 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



year the clover and the stubble, which is strong in potash, should 

 be ploughed in, the land heavily manured, and sown to man- 

 golds or Swedish turnips ; to mangolds, and treated with five 

 bushels of salt per acre, if designed for milch cows ; and tur- 

 nips, if for horses or young, growing stock. These plants will 

 feed more largely on potash than any other mineral, and will 

 deplete the soil of much of that material, and should therefore 

 be followed by a crop taking some other as its leading element. 

 Clover is a lime plant ; as a forage plant, also, it is second to 

 none we cultivate. Whether as a pasture plant or fed in the 

 form of hay, it is charged with the fatty, oily materials neces- 

 sary to make rich milk, to cause the animal to lay on fat, with 

 albumen to administer to the healthy vigor of the muscular tis- 

 sues. Its influence on the soil is highly beneficial. It sends 

 its strong network of roots deep into and all through it, search- 

 ing out and bringing up plant-food from the subsoil, which other 

 plants could never reach ; sending out its numberless leaves to 

 gather and appropriate the fertilizing elements of the atmos- 

 phere, and when its life is ended, leaves the soil open and 

 porous and filled with the richest of organic and mineral mate- 

 rial in its roots. Clover, then, should be the crop the fourth 

 year, and it may be either pastured or mown from the field ; and 

 according to the circumstances of the farmer and the physical 

 condition of the soil, as to whether it is light loam or strong 

 and retentive, it may be continued in clover and grass one, two 

 or three years, when the rotation can be commenced again with 

 Indian corn. In case it is designed that the land shall remain 

 in grass three years, other grass seeds should be mixed with 

 the clover at the time of sowing ; and if the rotation is to be 

 recommenced after one or two years of clover, the second crop 

 should be ploughed in. This rotation and mode of management 

 will give us at least four good and profitable crops, with but one 

 heavy draft on the barnyard ; but the soil is much strengthened 

 by the minerals applied and the organic substances ploughed in, 

 and will in time be found to increase in productiveness. 



The next great agricultural pursuit of our people is tobacco 

 culture. Right or wrong it is a fixed fact that more than five 

 thousand acres of the best land in the State are devoted to this 

 crop, and they produce an annual value greater by far than all 

 its market gardens, and nearly equal to that of all its dairies. 



