THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



235 



with compound interest in a few years. 

 Your soil once relieved of excess of water, 

 their textures will become greatly improved, 

 their earliness will be increased fully three 

 weeks, and to that extent you may be able 

 to work them earlier in the spring ; their 

 productive capacity will be increased at 

 least'one-third ; they will produce crops of 

 better quality, and withal the health of 

 your place will be meliorated. 



4 » » » 



CLOVES SEED — GATHERING AND 

 CLEANING. 



In the May number of the Valley Far- 

 mer we promised to give some information 

 in regard to the proper machinery for gath- 

 ering and hulling Clover seed, the manner 

 of gathering, &c. 



When it is intended to save the seed 

 from' a crop of clover, the spring growth 

 should be cut for hay. or it may be pas- 

 tured. When eaten quite close, the stock 

 should be turned off till the seed is ripe 

 and harvested. 



The most common method of saving 

 clover seed, is to mow it at a time when 

 the largest quantity of seed is ripe, and 

 before it 'begins to fall off from the heads. 



t o 



The heads, when fully dry, are threshed 

 off by hand or with a thresher, or trod ont 

 on a barn floor, or in the field. The straw 

 is then separated from the chaff and the 

 seed is ready to be hulled and cleaned. 

 With Manny's Combined Reaper and 

 Mower, which is adjustable to cut any 

 height, the heads can be cut off and re- 

 ceived upon the apron until full, and then 

 cast off in heaps upon the field. 



There are also a number of Patent Clover 

 Seed Gatherers. These we have never 

 seen in operation, but understand some of 

 them perform well. The best that we have 

 seen is patented by Mr. John S. Gage, of 

 Michigan. We expect to see these fully 

 tried the present season and will then pub- 

 lish the result. We once made and used 

 for many years, a very simple machine for 

 gathering clover heads, with which a man 

 and horse can go over and gather the seed 

 from double the quantity of land in a day 

 that he can cut over with a scythe ; and 

 when the heads only are gathered, they re- 

 quire no other labor, except drying, to pre- 

 pare them to run through the hulling and 

 cleaning machine. Any tolerable workman 



can make one of these machines in two 

 days. It is upon the following plan : Make 

 an ordinary s.led with the sides or runners 

 14 inches wide and 6 feet 6 inches long. 

 These may be placed 5 or 6 feet apart, and 

 secured together with two cross pieces 

 only at the back end, leaving the forward 

 part open to the length of 3<| or 4 feet ; 

 then a box is made to nearly fill the width 

 between the runners. The box is 4 feet 

 long and 15 inches deep, with the forward 

 end open. To the cross pieces at the bot- 

 tom of the box, at the forward end, teeth 

 of hard wood are secured so as to project 

 about 12 inches ; they should be § of an 

 inch thick and 1 inch wide on top and 

 made a quarter of an inch narrower or 

 beveling on the underside. These teeth 

 are placed three- sixteenths of an inch apart, 

 so as to form a comb. If the upper sides 

 of th jpbee th were capped with hoop-iron, 

 neatly fitted, it would be better, This box 

 is hung between the sides of the sled urjon 

 two gudgeons or pins two inches in diam- 

 eter, just as a cannon is hung in its car- 

 riage. With two handles, four feet long, 

 secured to the box and. projecting behind, 

 the box may be moved on the pins so as 

 to raise or lower the teeth to adapt them 

 to clover of any height. A man with a 

 horse can strip the heads from four or five 

 acres of clover in a day with this machine, 

 and collect it in the box. With one of 

 these machines a farmer can gather as 

 much seed in a day as would be required 

 to seed forty or fifty acres. It needs no 

 hulling or cleaning unless it is designed 

 for market. Some prefer to sow the seed 

 in the chaff to that which is cleaned. 



For market, the seed must be hulled and 

 cleaned. For this purpose a great variety 

 of machines have been invented, nearly 

 all, however, upon the same general prin- 

 ciple. Those in most common use in the 

 clover growing counties of Ohio, are Mans- 

 field's patent, manufactured by Mansfield 

 & Whiting, Ashland, Ohio, and Crawford's 

 patent, by other manufacturers. A speci- 

 men of these machines may be seen at 

 the Reaper Warehouse of H. B. Howard, 

 in Louisville, Ky. Others may be seen at 

 the Agricultural Warehouse of Wm. i\h 

 Plant & Co., St. Louis, Mo. 



We have received from a gentleman in, 

 Missouri the following letter, which was 

 sent him by a gentleman in, Ohio, upon the 

 subject of clover seed. It contains in for* 



