186 Quantity of Clover Seed. 



ryegrass was amply proved. The former, from its superior 

 productive power, is cheaper than the latter. The former teUs in 

 the most superior manner on the subsequent crops, and in 

 ameliorating the condition of the soil. But the farmer still 

 prefers the practically dear ryegrass to the cheaper and more 

 advantageous cocksfoot. 



On the Quantity of Clovee Seed that Should be 

 Used. — It has been customary in Scotland to sow from 10 to 

 even 14 lbs. of clover with the mixtures used in rotation hus- 

 bandry. Our usual seeding, which we find ample, is 1 lb. of 

 alsike, 2 lb|. of late -flowering red clover, and 2 lbs. of white 

 clover. With 2 lbs. of white clover we have abundance of the 

 plant, and in one fiVe-year-old grass field it has been abimdant 

 throughout. An agriculturist of great experience in Northum- 

 berland informs me that he had noticed the rapid disappearance 

 of clovers in pastures when sown in large quantities ever since 

 he could remember anything. Eed clover is only a degree more 

 difficult to grow than white, and is liable to fail, he says, from the 

 same cause ; but when he used 2 lbs. or 3 lbs. of white clover it 

 gradually increased as time went on. And the dreaded fourth 

 year never came. Were it not that the plants were liable to be 

 destroyed by slugs, in the event of the early summer being wet, 

 he would only sow 1 lb. That was his experience up to 1893, but 

 in a letter received from him in October, 1900, he informs me that 

 he has continued his experiments, and for the last few years only 

 sown 1 lb. per acre of white clover, and no clover of any other 

 description. Our experience this year certainly seems to show 

 that even with 6 lbs. we have been sowing too much. In the case 

 of some acres cut ofE at the head of the Outer Kaimrig field for 

 planting, at an elevation of about 800 feet, I ordered half of the 

 grass part of the mixture used in the field to be put down in the 

 part severed for the plantation, partly for shelter to the plants 

 and partly as cover, and partly to re -seed the field, as the seeds, 

 from the prevailing wind, would be blown over the land below. 

 But, owing to an error, half of the whole mixture was sown, and 

 it was rather less than haJf, I am informed. The clovers thus 

 sown in error were rather less than 1 lb. each of alsike, late- 



