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about 1 per cent. of potash and phosphoric acid and about 40 per 
cent. lime. Ashes from burnt vine euttings are rich in potash, 
and on that account they should be spread back on the land. It 
is the practice now to burn them in an iron furnace set on a 
sledge or mounted on iron wheels and drawn by a horse along the 
rows of vines after pruning in the winter. In this way the ashes 
resulting from the burning are evenly spread amongst the vines. 
Green Manurrne affords one of the best and cheapest methods 
of adding humus or organic mould to poor sandy soils more 
especially. The term is applied to some quick-growing crop which 
is ploughed in green. Two classes of plants are used: those which 
ave not exacting in their demand for plant food and constitute a 
cover in the winter which checks loss by washing or drainage, and 
those which gather plant food from the air as well as from the 
subsoil and leave it on the surface for the use of succeeding crops. 
To the first class belong rye, buekwheat, rape, Cape weed, Cape 
and beardless barley; to the second, the legumes—clovers, peas, 
vetches, lupins—a class of plants capable, by means of the bacteria 
living in their root nodules, to absorb and fix the free nitrogen of 
the soil atmosphere. By the process of green manuring, loose 
soils are made more retentive, and clay soils lighter. Cow peas, 
although very desirable as green manure, are not used in orchards 
where winter-growing plants are exclusively grown. They are 
better suited for tropical countries where summer rains occur. 
For winter sowing the most desirable plants are crimson clover 
(Trifolium incarnatum), an annual which germinates and develops 
quickly. Eight to ten pounds of seeds will sow an acre. The 
erowth of the erop will be greatly stimulated by the application 
of some phosphate and potash fertilisers. When grown, it will 
act in three distinct ways: as a winter covering to the soil, as a 
summer mulch, as a plant food gatherer. Experiments at the 
Jersey Experiment Station, U.S., found that a growth of 13 inches 
produced 168lbs. of nitrogen, worth £5. 
The Canadian field pea has also given very satisfactory re- 
sults. Sow about 85 to 100lbs. per acre, or plough the crop in the 
early spring, using a chain on the plough and a dise coulter to 
cover and drag in all vines under the earth. 
Several kinds of trefoil invade our vinevards and orchards 
after a few years of cultivation and do much good as nitrogen 
vatherers: they are natives of Southern Europe and are annuals, 
viz, Hop clover (Trifolium procumbens), distinguished by its 
large yellow hop-like flower; Woolly clover (T. tomentosum), 
Clustered clover (T. glomeratum), Slender or Minus clover CD. 
minus), Burr trefoil (medicigo denticulata), Subterranean clover 
(T. subterrancum). 
The best method of growing a winter cover crop is to sow the 
eveon manure in the autumn (April) ploughing in the mass of the 
