and ui3on the Oolites and other light soils of the New Red 

 Sandstone and of the Coal district, red clover, owing to fre- 

 quent losses of the crop, is only sown once every twelfth 

 year. An inquiry, therefore, into the causes of these general 

 and extensive failures of this plant, and consequent loss to the 

 farmer, cannot but be of advantage. 



In the Paper before alluded to, the causes of failure at the 

 time of sowing, and during the summer months, have already 

 been pointed out, and it is, therefore, to the failure of the 

 clover crop after harvest that the following remarks will be 

 more particularly directed. In this case the crop after har- 

 vest is always good, but dies away during the months of 

 November, December, January, February, and March, the 

 lands on which this occurs being denominated " clover sick," 

 from a supposition of the too frequent repetition of that crop. 



The Committee of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, in 

 the Report of last year, directly ascribe the failure to the 

 exhaustion of some food required by the clover. They say — 

 " Mr. Thorp has collected a great mass of evidence to prove 

 " that on certain soils clover may be grown at short intervals. 

 " The Committee, on the other hand, have shown that certain 

 *' other soils will not grow it with advantage oftener than 



once in twelve years. These apparently contradictory 

 " facts may be reconciled on the supposition of the food of 

 " clover being exhausted," Mr. Legard, in the same Report, 

 says, On the much controverted question of clover sick- 

 " ness, my opinion is, that the soil is rendered unfit to pro- 

 " duce successive crops of this plant, either by excretions 



given out by the roots, or by the exhaustion of certain 

 " constituents of the soil by the plant itself." {Report of the 

 Yorkshire Agricultural Society, 1841, 136.) 



In order, if possible, to ascertain whether this opinion of 

 the food being exhausted was correct or not, two samples of 

 soil were sent for analysis to Mr. Spence, of York, a very 



