XXXIV. THE CLOVERS 
“Now, Cousin Clover, tell me in mine ear; 
Go'st thou to market with thy pink and green? 
Of what avail, this color and this grace? 
Wert thou but squat of stem and brindle-brown, 
Still careless herds would feed.” 
Sidney Lanier (Clover), 
“Knee-deep in clover’ is a purely agricultural figure of 
speech. No one who has seen the pigs or the heifers turned 
out into a clover-field of a summer morning, will need to be 
told that it signifies complete and unalloyed satisfaction. 
Nor does it mean merely pleasures of the palate, even for 
the beasts; for they gaze on the clover, sniff at it and take 
deep breaths, and lie down and roll in it. Doubtless there 
was clover in Eden. 
There are many kinds of clover, and they are of varying 
utility to us. Of all groups of cultivated plants, there is 
hardly another that is intimately bound up with so many 
agricultural interests. Clovers furnish green forage, both 
for pasture and for soiling. They furnish hay—hay that 
sets a standard of quality for all other hay; hay so rich in 
proteins, it needs to be diluted with other forage for ordinary 
feeding; and that, alone, is ground and used like meal. 
The clovers also supply fertilizers to the soil, especially 
nitrogenous fertilizers: directly, when plowed under and 
decomposed; and indirectly, through the action of the 
nitrogen-gathering bacteria that live in the nodules on their 
roots. The practice of retation of crops depends for its 
success largely on the work of the clovers in replenishing 
the supply of available nitrogen in the soil. Both by the 
deep penetration of their roots, opening up the hard subsoil 
to the ingress of air and water, and by the materials they 
contribute in their decay, they leave the soil in better condi- 
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