100 THE CLOYER CROP. 



a second or even a third year, and is generally succeeded 

 by wheat, except, of course, in cases where it was sown 

 down with the wheat crop. For either of these grain 

 crops clover no doubt is an excellent change, as it Differs 

 widely from them in its food requirements from the soil, 

 and also in its habit of growth and general tillage treat- 

 ment. Now, if these be the true principles upon which 

 our system of rotations is based a system which long 

 experience has pointed out as necessary, and which science 

 has confirmed and explained to us we appear to be sadty 

 negligent of our own interests in departing so widely as 

 we usually do from the principles involved, by mixing 

 with our clovers other plants belonging to exactly the 

 same order as those to which the clover is intended to be 

 a change. Throughout the country far and wide the 

 universal practice is to mix ryegrass, either alone or com- 

 bined with other grasses, with the clovers, and thus to a 

 great extent to neutralize the benefit which clovers sown 

 by themselves would confer upon the rotation. The rye- 

 grass, which is the common companion of the clovers, is 

 identical in its botanical characters with the ordinary 

 straw crops which both precede and succeed the clover 

 crop : its food requirements are the same, and it forms a 

 home for the continuous production of the various fungoid 

 diseases and insect enemies which so frequently and so 

 seriously injure our grain crops. Here, then, our practice 

 is totally opposed to our principles, and instead of grow- 

 ing an intermediate crop, differing in its agricultural 

 characters and requirements from those which ^are next 

 to it in the rotation, we diminish the benefits we might 

 fairly expect to receive, by mixing with it plants belong- 

 ing to the same family as those to which the clover crop 

 ought to be an entire change. 



Although this is the common practice that has been 

 and is still followed, there can be but little doubt that 



