448 
Manafipmont of Clover Layers. 
desirable to invito and eucoiu-agc brief reports from members of the 
Society and others to the Journal, of facts observed in their own 
practice, and the results of any experiments or observations arising on 
any novel practice in their respective neighbourhoods ? 
So long as oiu- Jom-nal is considered to be mainly designed for the 
promulgation of strictly scientific papers— valuable as undoubtedly 
they are — and for prize essays, many intelligent and observing farmers 
hesitate as to communicating results of their observations, under an 
impression they would not be valued or considered worthy of notice, 
or that they might be as an old story to their more advanced agi'i- 
cultm*al brethren. No doubt similar observations suggest like modi- 
fications of practice to many persons engaged in the same occupation ; 
but when it is l)ome in mind that our Journal gets into the hands, 
directly, of several thousand members, and, indirectly, of many 
non-subscribers, the probaljility is that any special practice out of the 
ordinary routine of his county, which an individual has been led to 
adopt from his own observation and reasoning, ivill afford useful 
hints to many readers of the Jottrnal. 
After a longer exordium than I contemplated when I took my 
pen in hand, I vrill illustrate my views at the risk of communicating 
nothing new to many of oiu- readers. Much has been said and wi-itten 
• of late years of the difficulty of maintaining for any length of time the 
four-field system of cidtivation, from the too-frequent recm-rence of the 
same crop on the same land. CJover-sichness, as it is commonly 
called, is one case in point. I was sorely troubled v/ith this complaint, 
whatever it might be ; and my clovers faile'd to such an extent that I 
found it necessary to look about me. I observed that clovers generally 
stood well on deep, firm soils in the vales. I also observed that while 
the clover failed over a considerable portion of my own fields, there 
was always a good plant on the headlands, where the soil was most 
consolidated. I had been taught that the young clovers should bo 
very sparingly fed, if at all, and tlien only by lambs for a short time 
after the spring-corn harvest ; and I had adopted moderate and total 
abstinence in vain. In consequence of the observations to which I 
liave adverted, I resolved on trying the opposite treatment of consoli- 
dation, by feeding sheep throughout the autumn ; and I put first the 
lambs, and then the flock of ewes, upon the yoimg clovers, by which 
means they were trodden firm, and looked anything but promising 
during the winter. In the following year I had by far the most re- 
gular crop of clover I had ever seen on the farm, I jimsued the same 
treatment the following season ; and considering the wheat-crop de- 
pended so materially on the clover-crop, I determined on an alteration 
of the common system of reserving all the farm-manm-e for the root- 
crop, and borrowed one-half for the seed-crop, to be laid on after the 
sheep. The sheep-treading and feeding having secured me a very 
