No. 4.] GKASS AND CLOVER. 125 



amounts of each should not be overlooked. Timothy and 

 clover are of course the stand-bys which furnish the prin- 

 cipal hay crops ; but if the land is to be used as a pasture at 

 all, others, such as Kentucky l)lue grass and redtop, which 

 thicken up the turf and are particularly hardy, should be 

 used in the mixture. Redtop is especially adapted to moist 

 lands. 



The mixture which we are linding eminently satisfactory 

 is, per acre: timothy, 11 pounds; red clover, 6 pounds; 

 alsike clover, 4 pounds ; Kentucky blue grass or redtop, 4 

 pounds. With us the alsike clover outlives the red clover, 

 hence the reason for including it in the mixture. In favor- 

 able seasons the first crop coming from this will be almost 

 clear clover. If the land is kept in grass another year there 

 will usually be less clover, and then the timothy will come 

 in. We had a good illustration of the safety in using this 

 mixture last winter. It was a most unfavorable winter with 

 us for clover, and consequently most of it was winter-killed. 

 In the spring, however, a fine crop of timothy and Kentucky 

 blue grass came on, and, instead of having a failure of our 

 hay crop, we had a yield of 3% tons to the acre. 



4. Overcoming Acidity and Sourness in the Land. 

 In the taking of some 250 samples of soil from difierent 

 sections of New England, and subjecting them to the usual 

 tests for determining soil acidity, I have found that about 90 

 per cent of the older lands respond to the tests. There are 

 a few sections of the east, where the soils are of a natural 

 limestone formation, where this does not seem to be true. 

 The four elements most used by plants are : nitrogen, potash, 

 phosphoric acid and lime. Farmers buy large quantities of 

 the first tlu'ee of these, and utterly neglect consideration of 

 the need of the latter. Grasses, and es})ecially the clover 

 plant, thrive best when a sufficient quantity of lime is present ; 

 and I know from considerable experience that a large num- 

 ber of these unproductive soils may be greatly improved by 

 the judicious use of lime. 



The ash analysis of clover and timothy shows that these 

 crops use potash, phosphoric acid and lime in the following 

 proportions : — 



