1909.] Trials of Wild White Clover. 713 



TRIALS OF WILD WHITE CLOVER. 



Douglas A. Gilchrist, M.Sc, 



Professor of Agriculture, Armstrong College. 



White or Dutch clover {Trifolium repens) has been grown 

 by English farmers since 1764* or earlier. In that year the 

 Society of Arts awarded a premium of £20 to a Wiltshire 

 agriculturist for growing 21 J cwt. of the seed of this plant, 

 and a similar premium was awarded for the same purpose in 

 the following year. The Society's object was to encourage the 

 growing of the seed in this country, instead of importing it 

 from Holland, as was then the custom. Red, or broad-leaved 

 clover (Trifolium pratense) had been in common use in 

 England long before this time, as Walter Blyth, in the 

 English Improver Improved (third edition, 1652), describes 

 the cultivation of this crop. It had then probably been 

 recently introduced. Blyth, speaking of this clover, states : 

 "Your Dutch, Holland, or Low Country seed, or from the 

 lower parts of Germany, is very much of it very hazardous 

 that comes over hither." Again he says : " From the experi- 

 ence my self hath made, I doe affirm that our own seed, that 

 is, seed of our own clover, after the first sowing of the Dutch 

 seed, called the great clover, is the best and most certain seed 

 to grow." He gave as reasons the difficulty of getting good 

 seed, and the right kind of seed, from abroad. In this con- 

 nection it is interesting to record that successive trials at 

 Cockle Park, Northumberland, have decidedly indicated that 

 English-grown clover seed produces plants which stand the 

 climatic conditions of the north-east of England better and are 

 longer lived than almost any grown from imported clover 

 seed. Woolridge, in his Systema Agriculturcc (1681), fully 

 describes the cultivation of this clover, and mentions that it 

 "usually decayeth at three years' growth." From what he 

 says it is evident that the harvesting of clover seed was then 

 quite common in the south of England. 



In Gerarde's Herball,j- 1597, red clover, or Trifolium 

 pratense, is called "Medow Trefoile," and it is there stated 

 that "There is also a trefoile of this kinde, which is sowen in 



* Dossie's Memoirs of Agriculture, Vol. L, p. 58. f First edition, p. 1018. 



