The Clover Mystery. 189 



than ryegrass) and clover is about twice that from ryegrass and clover, 

 and, I need hardly add, must bo much greater in the case of the 

 mixtures used by me. It must be considered, further, that as ryegrass 

 is a rapid grower it deprives the clover of food, and, what is probably 

 of more importance, moisture at a critical period of its growth. It is 

 liot, ihen, surprising to find that clover flourishes the better as the 

 quantity of ryegrass is diminished, and its place supplied by the other 

 natural grasses. 



There are, then, three things probably necessary if we wish to 

 grow uniformly the fullest crops of clover, no matter what the 

 character of the season may be — namely, (1) seed of a hardy strain, 

 and drawn from a suitable climatic source ; (2) a farming system that 

 will deeply till the land with the agency of deep-rooting plants, and 

 store it with much humus ; and (3) the exclusion of perennial 

 ryegrass, or its reduction to a small proportion of the mixture used. 



Let us now consider the minor contributory causes of failure to 

 grow the fullest crops of clover. These are (1) sowing an excess of 

 clover seed ; (2) injudiciously grazing in autumn and spring, more 

 especially, of course, in the first twelve months ; (3) cutting the 

 covering crop so closely as at once to bleed the clover, and leave 

 little shelter for the plants ; (4) failing to roll the land judiciously in 

 first autumn and spring, and especially before admitting stock ; and 

 (5) raking the stubble, and thus injuring the clover plants. As a 

 sixth minor cause I was at first inclined to add " the too frequent 

 I'epetition of clover," but, on further consideration, I have doubts as 

 to whether the usual repetition of the plant, though more frequent 

 than in the case of my farming system, is at all hostile to growing 

 fairly good crops where suitable seed has been in association with 

 little or no perennial ryegrass ; for, though my system has undoubt- 

 edly largely increased the crops of clover, we always had what farmers 

 considered to be good crops of clover in the case of the four farms 

 which have been on my hands, and of which I have had an aggregate 

 experience of over twenty-five years ; and also, with the exception of 

 one field, to be afterwards alluded to, in the case of a fifth farmed 

 by my son, and I would call particular attention to the fact that this 

 was the case when the farms were first taken over, and before, of 

 course, ray system (excepting the omission of ryegrass) had had time 

 to influence the crops. But when I let the best of these first- 

 mentioned farms, the tenant had no difiiculty in producing what is 

 called clover sickness, and that, too, more than once, and in a most 

 marked degree on one of the best circumstanced fields on the farm. 

 These facts certainly seem to lead to the conclusion that if a farmer 

 sows good seed produced in a suitable climate, and uses little or no 

 ryegrass, he may be sure of growing fair crops of clover, though he 

 could not expect them to be nearly as good, nor as uniformly good, 

 as he could obtain were the land cultivated on the Clifton -on -Bowmont 

 system. 



As the facts as regards the sole instance of failure seem of interest 

 I give the tnanager's report of the field in full ; — 



