120 THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 



to consolidating, as it is thought, the soil through the 

 treading of the stock, I am rejoiced to ascertain, now 

 that harvest has arrived, that no one in the neighbour- 

 hood has anything like such " seeds " to mow. The 

 gang, strong men as they were, fairly groaned under 

 the weight of work, the gaffer declaring that they 

 should not get their 2s. per day. One shrewd old neigh- 

 bour, who is never above learning, and by observation 

 of whose excellent practice I have certainly been greatly 

 instructed, has determined to follow in my wake for the 

 future. All honour, however, to him by whose hint I 

 profited myself. Years ago, when I first took a fancy 

 to farming, among the books I perused was "Nesbit on 

 Agricultural Chemistry," an excellent little volume 

 of the sort. I must then have been struck with the 

 sentence, " Every leaflet upwards has a rootlet down- 

 wards ; and if the leaflet be taken off, the rootlet will 

 not grow," for the fact has stuck as a burr to my 

 memory ever since. I have to-day referred to the pas- 

 sage, which I find in its entirety so useful and interest- 

 ing, that I transcribe it for the use of those who may 

 not have the work itself to refer to. Mr. Nesbit writes : 

 " Now what does the clover do ? Every little leaflet 

 which it shoots up into the air sends a rootlet down- 

 wards, so that in proportion to the upward growth of 

 the clover is the downward growth of the root ; and 

 when you have taken the clover away, you retain, 

 in the shape of roots, several tons per acre of valuable 

 vegetable matter which, by its slow decomposition, 

 affords nutriment for the narrow-leafed wheat ; so that 

 by employing in the first instance turnips for the barley 

 and clover for the wheat, you accumulate in the soil a 

 large quantity of material absorbed from the air, for the 



