Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 43 | 



and searching roots, and from the atmosphere with its thickly 

 clustered leaves, not only what itself needs as food, but what the 

 cereals and corn as well require. By imparting these indispens- 

 able constitutents when turned under for manure, it assures to the 

 surface soil more or less of permanent richness, for its permanence 

 as a manure is what gives it such a deserved preference. 



A moment's consideration of the chemical constitutents of the 

 cereals and of corn as well, would be sufficient to indicate clearly 

 enough why clover is so sure a fertilizer for the lands in which it 

 is desired to grow them. I will name lime as one of these to illus- 

 trate this position. Lime is an indispensable property of the cereals, 

 and particularly of wheat; and clover contains a large percentage 

 of it. This it gives out to the soil on decomposition in the fallow, 

 and finally through it to the grain. 



Lime, for the reason just stated, is in some form or other, the 

 usual artificial manure relied on for clover. But, it is not applied in 

 the usual form in which it is put upon the soil itself, that is, the 

 carbonate of lime of the common limestone simply deprived of its 

 carbonic acid by the heat of the kiln, but in that of sulphate of 

 lime or gypsum, called plaster, as an abbreviation of plaster of 

 Paris, which is, as you all know, the designation of the same article 

 when used for building or artistic purposes. In my earlier farming 

 days, plaster was carried in wagons all the way from Baltimore or 

 Georgetown, to West Virginia, in lumps as large — many of them — as 

 an ox's head, and reduced to powder in the country flour mills, 

 between burr stones set wide purposely for it, after these lumps 

 were broken to a size sufficiently small to be taken in between 

 them. During my later visits to the clover region, I have missed 

 the great piles of plaster that used to greet my wandering juve- 

 nile gaze, and I believe the material is, now, usually obtained 

 ground and conveniently ready for use by the farmer as well as 

 the artizan. 



Plaster is generally sown upon the clover from one to two months 

 after the latter — in May, for the most pai't — the clover being sown, 

 as we have already seen, as early as February, sometimes. The 

 quantity is usually about one bushel to the acre. I would advise 

 a more liberal use on lands having little or no natural lime. To 

 get the full benefit of this fertilizer to the clover crop, especially 

 where land is deficient in lime, or on old and more or less over- 

 cropped limestone land, even the plaster should be duplicated the 

 following spring, at about the same time as before. 



