ECONOMY OF FARMING. ' 71 



21. Meadows which are artificially watered, or are frequently overflowed^ 

 need for their product no additional manure, because they are kept up by 

 the slime which is contained in the water. But if they are neither watered 

 nor overflowed, then must a part of their product be restored to them if 

 their productiveness is to be kept uniform. 



If on dry meadows which from no quarter possess a remarkable supply of manur- 

 ing substances, one obtains a yearly crop, though often a small one ; yet we need 

 not hence beUeve tint the growing plants hve only on air and water, and from these 

 two sources only can produce organic production ; they derive nourishment from 

 overflows, to wliich many years they have been exposed, from the droppings of 

 beasts, which in the autumn, and frequently in the spring, pasture on them ; and from 

 the bodies of insects and worms which die and are decomposed within reach of their 

 roots. Were it possible to shut off from the meadows these sources of nourishment, 

 then could they yield such an amount of organic products only when it was not 

 taken from them, and the leaves falling off rotted on the soil. To make hay on such 

 meadows, and take it away, would be to destroy the proportion between the quantity 

 of the organic product obtained from air and water, and that which is not returned 

 again to the same soil, and is elsewhere employed as hay ; the consequence of which 

 would be, that in a few years all the plants would pine away, and the meadow would 

 become scarcely better than a lean pasture. 



Whoever manures not his dry meadows, must content himself with their inconstant 

 but always small product ; but whoever wishes to obtain a more steady, and alwayt> 

 a greater product, must take back to them, from time to time, manuring substances; 

 and the greater and more efficacious the quantity of the same is, the richer also w4!l 

 the product be which they will yield, as the manured mountain-meadows show. 



22. The pod-bearing plants, perennials, derive only half of their dry 

 products from the humus ; the other they owe to the inorganic matter, and 

 since the mass of the roots of clover, of luzerne, and sainfoin, increase 

 yearly about one fourth part of the product of their leaves ; hence is clear, 

 the great importance which these plants hold in agriculture, as they yield so 

 great products, and reduce the soil so little. 



This opinion is by no means arbitrary, since a well-sown field of luzerne, in a warm 

 climate, yields in a course of five years, twice as much in dry fodder, as has been in- 

 troduced of earlier dried substance by means of manure. Suppose there has been 

 carried on to it in the time of sowing. 300 cwt. of stall-manure which consists of 150 

 cwt. of hay and straw, for I yoke CI. 422 acres), and later twice, each time, 5 cwt of 

 gypsum hns been used; that the harvest has been in 5 years 294 cwt. of hay; in 

 the first year 34 ; in the four following, always 65 cwt. If now we plough up sach a 

 field of luzerne, and all the seeds cast in grow as luxuriantly from the decaying great 

 roots as if they were freshly manured, there could be no doubt as to the correct- 

 ness of this conclusion. Because the clover usually remains in the soil only two 

 years, its roots are not as important as those of luzerne, but they are always sufficient to 

 affect one quarter of the usual manuring substances from the stall. If the field of clover 

 is thick set, and the growth of the plants has been fiivored by the weather, then the 

 fre?h roots of clover on an average of many experiments bear 140 cwt., and their 

 effect cannot be less than half as great a weight of manure would be. Where 

 the clover is thinner and low, the crop which follows it is then so much the worse. 



The causes why fruits following clover so distinguish themselves with respect to 

 their growth and product, must in a slight degree be ascribed to the leaves which have 

 fallen off but in a crreat measure to the roots remaining in the soil. The experi- 

 ments Avhich Prof. KOrte tried on this subject in 1835, show, that on an extent of a 

 Vienna yoke ( 1.422 acres), in a part of a clover field where gypsum was used, 366, 

 and on apart where it was not used. 270 cwt. of fresh roots were contained ; in the ex- 

 periments which I tried in August 1837, one yoke of moderately stocked clover gave 

 only 1 17 cwt. of roots, and a friend of mine found in the same month, per yoke, 87, 124, 

 and 296 cwt, according as the clover was more or less thickly set. 



How KoRTE could obtain from clover which was sowed in the year 1834 with 

 barley, in June of the following year so great a mass of roots, I must leave to be 

 determined j but even in the case where only 140 cwt of roots per yoke continue ia 



