Proceedings of tee 'Farmers' Club. 427 



the writer, came in good part from Pennsylvania, because the 

 improvidence and slovenliness of slave-culture rendered it more 

 economical (as short-sightedness seemed to suggest) to buy than to 

 raise clover seed. But, for many years before the war, the home 

 eupply was more than equal to the demand, as will be inferred 

 from the statement that the usual yield is from two to three bushels 

 per acre, while, as testified by one of my correspondents, Mr. 

 Strayer, as much as seven bushels have been raised on a single 

 acre of ground, or enough to re-seed fifty-six acres. Since the 

 operations of Sheridan and Early, to say nothing of Stonewall 

 Jackson and Fremont or others, in that interruption to the peace- 

 ful art of husbandry which the tramp of hostile battalions brings, 

 to say nothing of its destructiveness, the supply is now, in many 

 parts of the Valley, short of the demand for local use. 



For the perfection of the growth of red clover, two years are 

 requisite. The plant rarely attains to any considerable growth 

 before the fall frosts. The following spring, having the field lite- 

 rally to itself, it is pushed forward vigorously, under the treatment 

 to be named presently, and is ready for the scythe by the middle 

 of June, or, at farthest, the twentieth of that month, varying with 

 the run of the seasons. The indication of readiness for hai-vestiug 

 is the brown tinge assumed by more or less of the, until now, so 

 brightly blooming and inviting odoriferous flowers of this truly 

 beautiful as well as useful plant. "When a good yield of seed is 

 desired, it is better to pasture the clover till about the first of June, 

 and not mow it at all. The seed is furnished by the renewed 

 second year's growth, which follows either the cutting or pasturing 

 process; and, to obtain it in perfection, the seed crop should be 

 secured in August, from fields which have been used for pasturing, 

 but at least a month later in cases where the scythe has done its 

 later and lower cutting — for the plant is not checked, in its seed- 

 bearing tendency, so much by the cattle as by the mowers. The 

 stand of clover from which two crops have been cut, with the view 

 of securing hay and seed both, will not prove so good a fertilizer 

 as when one or both of these mowings have been omitted, and, for 

 pasture, the third crop is not adapted. It is apt to cause that 

 action on the salivary glands, known as " the slabbers," by which 

 the health and strength of horses particularly are literally drained 

 ofi", for I have seen that noble animal reduced almost to a skeleton 

 by it. But on well regulated farms, the sward is usually turned 

 under so soon as the seed crop is taken oflf, and fallowed prepara- 



