178 



THE WHEAT CULTUEIST. 



we should expect that the salts of ammonia would per- 

 form the same office to all the insoluble matters in the 

 soil necessary for the maximum growth of the plants it 

 supports. 



The result of these experiments should teach grain- 

 growing farmers the great importance of also growing 

 red - clover and other leguminous plants, which collect 

 most of their nitrogen from the dew, rain, and air, and 

 yet retain it in their tissues to twice the amount that it 

 is found in the cereal grasses. Thus, clover, peas, beans, 

 etc., whether ploughed under in the green state or fed 

 to animals and the manure applied to the soil, are nearly 

 thrice the value of manure made from the cereal grasses. 



On the light, sandy soils of Georgia, the cow pea is 

 grown as a manuring plant, and ploughed in green ; as 

 peas and beans contain three times as much nitrogen 

 as wheat or other cereals, the Georgia planter proves 

 the truth of chemical analysis in his own success. The 

 clover plant being of the same order as the cow pea 

 (leguminous), consuming little, but affording a great deal 

 of nitrogen, so necessary to all cereal crops, every farmer 

 who grows grain, or even timothy and other narrow- 

 leaved grasses, should also grow clover without stint. 

 But while the cereals require a soil richer in nitrogen 

 than in the mineral elements of plant food, yet a liberal 

 supply of superphosphate of lime will also add to the 

 incipient growth of cereals, and to the stalks but not to 

 the grain of Indian corn, and to turnips and all legu- 

 minous plants the minerals are especially beneficial. 

 Mr. Lawes wrote to a farmer thus : " When the alkalies 

 and phosphates alone are used, the pasture is a mass of 

 clover and trefoil ; but wlien ammonia is used, is all 

 grass." (See Maine Farmer " on this subject.) 



