164 



TALKS ON MANURES. 



And so it is in this country. Much as we hear about the value 

 of clover for manure, even those who extol it the highest do not 

 depend upon it alone for bringing up and maintaining the fertility 

 of their farms. The men who raise the largest crops and make the 

 most money by farming, do not sell clover-hay. They do not look 

 to the roots of the clover for making a poor soil rich. They arc, 

 to a man, good cultivators. They work their land thoroughly and 

 kill the weeds. They keep good stock, and feed liberally, and 

 make good manure. They use lime, ashes, and plaster, and are 

 glad to draw manure from the cities and villages, and muck from 

 the swamps, and not a few of them buy artificial manures. In the 

 hands of such farmers, clover is a grand renovating crop. It 

 gathers up the fertility of the soil, and the roots alone of a 

 large crop, often furnish food enough for a good crop of corn, 

 potatoes, or wheat. But if your land was not in good heart to 

 start with, you would not get the large crop of clover; and if you 

 depend on the clover-roots alone, the time is not far distant when 

 your large crops of clover will be things of the past, 



AMOUNT OF ROOTS LEFT IN THE SOIL BY DIFFERENT 



CROPS. 



We have seen that Dr. Voelcker made four separate deter- 

 minations of the amount of clover-roots left in the soil to the 

 depth of six inches. It may be well to tabulate the figures obtained : 



CLOVER-BOOTS, IN SIX INCHES OP SOIL, PEB ACBE. 



I have not much confidence in experiments of this kind. It is 

 so easy to make a little mistake ; and when you take only a square 

 foot of land, as was the case with Nos. 5 and 6, the mistake is mul- 

 tiplied by 43,560. Still, I give the table for what it is worth. 



