FARM CROPS OF CIV IDA iV 1001 47 



House of Commons, 



comjcittee eoom ?a, 



Thursday, March 13, 1902. 



The Select Standine: Committee ou Agriculture and Colonization met here this 

 day, at 10 o'clock A.M., Mr. Legris, Chairman, presiding. 



Dr. William Saunders, Superintendent of Experimental Farms, was present at 

 the request of the Committee, and testified as follows : — 



THE FEKTILIZIMG VALUE OF GREEN CLOVER DEJIOXSTRATED. 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, the first topic I want to bring under your notice 

 this morning is one which I have referred to once or twice before, that is the great 

 usefulness of the ploughing under of green clover to enrich the soil, especially in all 

 the eastern provinces of the Dominion. We have been carrying on at the Central Ex- 

 perimental Farm experiments for the past four or five years to determine, as far aa we 

 can, the value of ploughing under crops of green clover. The clover has been sown in 

 each case with the spring crop of grain, and after the grain has been cut, the clover 

 has been allowed to grow until about the middle of October, by which time a mat of 

 growth about ten or twelve inches high has been produced, when this has been ploughed 

 under as a preparation for the crop of the following spring. 



The turning under of that clover has been of great advantage to the soil as shown 

 in the following crops : 



As a result of the experiments in growing oats after the ploughing under of such 

 clover, twelve trials have been made in all, covering a period of four years, and in those 

 experiments the average increase in crops from this treatment has been 7 bushels per 

 acre. A comparison has been made with plots alongside of those treated with the 

 clover, which have not had any clover grown on them and the results from a series of 

 these has shown this average increase of 7 bushels of grain per acre. 



Experiments with barley, coverir"? nearly the same period, have shown an average 

 increase in the grain of 8 bushels 31 pounds per acre. 



Seventeen experiments have been tried in the same time during three years with 

 Indian corn and these have shown an average increase in the weight of the green corn 

 cut for the silo of 3 tons 1,694 pounds per acre. 



In experiments with potatoes the average of a test covering a period of two years 

 has shown an increase from the ploughing under of clover amounting to 33 bushels and 

 20 pounds per acre. 



This is a very important question, especially to farmers of the eastern provinces, 

 where clover can be easily grown. It is one of the most important questions which 

 can be brought before them, and the growing of clover has been continued in this way 

 from year to year with the object of impressing this fact upon the minds of farmers 

 with greater force. 



From the chemical analyses which have been made with clover, it is evident that 

 fl crop of clover such as I have described, adds to the soil about as much nitrogen as 

 would be had from the application of ten tons of barn-yard manure to the acre. It 

 adds also practically certain other elements of plant food for the reason that the clover 

 roots go to a depth that other plants do not reach, and they bying tip from the subsoil 

 below stores of potash and phosphoric acid which are very useful. The larger part of the 

 nitrogen added to the land by this method, is obtained from the air, the clover being 



