88 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



amount of nitrogen as there is in the crimson, but, taken 

 altogether, there is quite as much value in the red clover as 

 in the crimson. 



Mr. . I have been growing crimson clover in a 



small way for four years. We have had trouble by winter- 

 killing to some extent. For the last two years I have mixed 

 red clover and crimson clover seed and sown it, and the red 

 clover seems to help the crimson clover to live through. 

 They both make a healthy growth and cost very little but 

 the seed. I like to keep my ground covered with something 

 of the kind. We do not yet know the value of red clover. 

 It should be sowed before the first of August. 



Mr. Taber. The clover grows stronger every year. We 

 know it will not grow unless the bacteria are in the soil, 

 unless the conditions are right. If you grow as we do in the 

 vineyards, we find every year the growth is stronger and 

 better, and the more likely it is to live through and not die 

 out by the changes of the season. I want to say that it is 

 now four or five years since I commenced to grow crimson 

 clover. Do not be discouraged because it suffers for a year 

 or two. It is necessary that the soil shall be inoculated with 

 these microbes, in order that the plant shall thrive and grow 

 and ])e strong enough to withstand the winters. I had it 

 killed for two winters, but for two years past it has lived 

 through. It is the freezing and thawing in the spring that 

 kills it. Yet the fact is that we get more than it costs, even 

 if the crop is killed. We have the richness in the soil, the 

 nitrogen that has been stored in the roots. To show you 

 just what it can do, I was one of the first to plant a crop on 

 a crimson clover seed-bed in our section, it being about half 

 an acre. It was adjoining a piece of corn stubble. The 

 whole was ploughed and treated exactly alike and fertilized 

 in the same way. I planted it to sweet corn, and the 

 growth of the corn was the same until it was about six inches 

 high, then you could almost see the changes every day. 

 That on the crimson clover sod was of a darker, brighter 

 color and grew faster than the other, and all through the 

 season it was from three to six inches hig-her than the other. 

 But the value came in when we took otf the ears for market. 

 In the portion where the clovei* sod was turned under we 



