EED CLOVEE. 141 



source of food, on which cereal crops specially delight to grow. 



9. There is a strong presumptive evidence that the nitrogen which 

 exists in the air in the shape of ammonia and nitric acid, and that which 

 descends in these combinations with the rain which falls on the ground, 

 satisfies, under ordinary circumstances, the requirements of the clover 

 crop. This crop causes a large accumulation of nitrogenous matters, 

 which are gradually changed in the soil into nitrates. The atmosphere 

 thus furnishes nitrogenous food to the succeeding wheat indirectly, 

 and, so to say, gratis. 



10. Clover not only provides abundance of nitrogenous food, but 

 delivers this food in a readily available form (as nitrates) more grad- 

 ually and continuously, and consequently with more certainty of a good 

 result, than such food can be applied to the land in the shape of nitro- 

 genous spring top-dressings. 



I have thus given a larger space to clover than to any 

 other grass, natural or artificial, because I believe it is the 

 most important plant that can engage the attention of 

 Tennessee farmers, not only valuable in itself, but prepar- 

 ing the land for crops that bring the highest price in the 

 market. Upon whatever farm clover is grown in regular 

 rotation, there will be found abundant crops, fat stock and 

 improved husbandry. It is the main pillar of Tennessee 

 agriculture, and it is worse than folly to attempt to make 

 farming pay for any number of years without it. A farmer 

 who is too poor to sow clover seed is too poor to own a 

 farm, and however great may be his exertions (unless with- 

 in reach of a large town where manures are abundant) if he 

 does not sow clover he is doomed to a hopeless poverty. 



