212 SIZE OF SEEDS. 



much upon the great variety, and the variety is attained 

 cheaply by plants of small seeds. 



In a pound of buckwheat, for instance, there are only 

 about fifteen thousand seeds ; in red clover, a little 

 over two hundred and fifty thousand ; in rye and oats, 

 about twenty thousand; while in many of the best 

 plants for manuring, there are over a million grains to 

 the pound. 



In what does the superiority of clover as a green 

 manuring plant consist? Is it not in the vast amount 

 of water stored away in its succulent leaves and stems, 

 which causes it to decay with great rapidity when 

 buried in the soil, and thus furnish a supply of fertiliz- 

 ing materials in the quickest manner ? In this respect 

 it is no doubt exceedingly valuable for the purpose ; 

 but is it not possible to render other plants, whose 

 seeds are far less expensive, equally watery and luxu- 

 riant, by sowing them thickly together, and by a judi- 

 cious selection of large and leafy plants for protecting 

 the smaller ones by their shade ? 



If the above suggestions are worthy of consideration, 

 it would seem to follow that many of the plants now 

 regarded as weeds, and never cultivated, except in some 

 cases for the beauty of their flowers, may be valuable 

 to sow and turn in as green manure. Any plants, in- 

 deed, which will grow with others, and form a great 

 mass of green vegetable growth, embodying and cor- 

 porifying the fertilizing elements of the air, may be 

 made useful and serviceable to the farmer. 



It is not my purpose, in this connection, to develop a 

 complete system of green manuring by a description 

 of all the plants most valuable to be used for this ob- 

 ject, but only to suggest that some of the species of the 

 grasses which have been alluded to in the preceding^ 

 pages may be important as green manure plants, espe- 



