242 The Clover Mystery. 



condition. In like manner I have treated tlie once run ont soil of 

 the Clifton-on-Bowmont farm, where field after field had been 

 enclosed from the hill. The virgin turf gave of course, -with the aid 

 of a little artificial manure with the turnips and swedes, splendid 

 crops for a certain number of years, but as, from the distance from 

 the steading, no farmyard manure could be applied, the inevitable 

 exhaustion of humus ensued. There was only one way of remedying 

 the evil, and that was to produce humus on the spot in the shape of 

 turf. This was done with the aid of my system, and I have found by 

 comparative analysis that I have not only restored the run-out 

 humus, or decaying vegetable matter of the virgin turf, but supplied 

 it in a much more effective degree, in consequence of my deepening 

 the soil with the aid of the deep--rooting plants and grasses used in 

 my mixture. Whether then the season is excessively wet or one of 

 extreme drought, we produce without fail the fullest crops of clover, 

 which, I need hardly add, are the indispensable base of all econo- 

 mical and successful agriculture where the Leguminosse can be 

 grown, and not only for the food supplied for stock, but for the 

 physical and manurial effects provided for the use of the future 

 crops of the rotation. To sum up. — If you can grow clover you can 

 grow grass, and if you can grow grass you can, with the aid of deep- 

 rooting and dronght-resisting plants, grow in four years a turf which 

 is manure for four crops without any added manure, either by feeding 

 cake on the land or artificials, except perhaps a small quantity of 

 the latter for the turnip and swede crops, and these I hope entirely 

 to abolish next year, as I have found by experiments that after 

 ploughing up a second turf none are required. Nor are they in the 

 case of potatoes. On comparing my yield last year with that of the 

 Balderston Farm experiments near Ivinlithgow, where 20 tons of 

 dung and ^i cwt. of artificials were used, I not only, with the aid of 

 a good turf, beat the experiments as to amount of production, but 

 showed a much larger profit, as I used neither dung nor artificials. 

 In this connection it is important to note the following, as growing 

 potatoes with the use of turf alone as manure seems to have an 

 important effect not only as to production, but also as to superiority 

 of eating-quality of the potatoes, and especially with reference to 

 potato disease. The variety I used was the Up-to-Date, and it pro- 

 duced 13 tons 14 cwt. per acre and there were practically no diseased 

 potatoes, only an occasional one such as, I am told, is commonly 

 seen in all cases. In the case of the same variety the Balderston 

 experiments gave 10 tons 18 cwt. 6 lbs., and no less than 7 cwt. 2 lbs. 

 of diseased potatoes. 



It is of practical interest to note the steps taken by our prede- 

 cessors in Scotland to maintain the humus of the soil by dividing 

 farms into infield and outfield, and guarding the latter from 

 exhaustion, as the amount of farmyard manure available could of 



