Clover  or  other  Seeds. 
433 
farmers  now  sow  it,  notwithstanding  its  tenderness,  as  early  as 
February,  the  object  being  that  it  should  be  up  high  in  May,  so 
as  to  shade  the  ground  and  keep  that  moist,  in  M ay  droughts.  Late 
sown  barley  will  sometimes  not  grow  two  feet  from  the  ground. 
Barley  sown  in  February  gives  the  best  quality — sown  in  April, 
the  largest  bulk,  that  is  if  no  drought  ensues.  As  one  chief  point 
in  deciding  the  question  must  be  the  power  of  barley  to  endure 
frost,  and  it  is  known  not  to  stand  through  the  winter,  I ought  to 
put  on  record  a fact  which  came  under  my  own  observation  this 
year.  Early  in  March  we  had  very  severe  frosts,  and  one  night 
in  particular  my  self-registering  thermometer  marked  11°  of 
Fahrenheit,  that  is,  21°  below  freezing  point,  an  amount  of  frost 
which  is  not  experienced  sometimes  in  a whole  winter.  My 
early  sown  barley  was  out  of  the  ground  in  full  blade,  and  I 
watched  it  with  curiosity,  but  it  did  not  suffer  at  all.  It  might 
have  suffered  if  the  land  had  been  out  of  condition,  for  condition 
has  the  curious  property  of  enabling  grasses,  even  Italian  rye- 
grass, to  withstand  frost  which  they  could  not  otherwise  resist,  as  I 
have  often  remarked.  To  sow  thus  early  we  must  plough  quickly 
after  the  fold,  and  it  appears  to  me  that  there  is  little  risk  in 
ploughing  turnip-land,  however  miry  from  sheep,  during  winter, 
because  the  first  good  frost  will  reduce  it  to  a fine  mould.  In 
spring,  indeed,  it  might  grow  hard,  if  ploughed  when  too  wet, 
and  became  therefore  difficult  to  render  as  fine  as  barley  likes  its 
seed-bed  to  be. 
Third  Year. — Clover  or  other  Seeds. 
I wish  I could  report  any  progress  in  our  knowledge  of  the 
clover-sickness,  by  which  the  growth  of  clover  is  almost  stopped 
in  some  light-land  districts  of  the  north,  especially  Yorkshire, 
and  for  which  every  remedy  proposed  has  hitherto  failed.  It  is 
only  mentioned  here  in  order  to  stimulate,  if  possible,  further 
endeavours  to  fill  up  this  blank  in  our  scientific  and  practical 
knowledge.  In  Cambridgeshire,  where  the  clover-sickness,  how- 
ever,  seems  not  so  severe  as  in  Yorkshire,  Mr.  Jonas  says, — 
“ Many  of  our  best  farmers  now  sow  red  clover  only  once  in  1G  years, 
getting  the  seed-shift  into  the  following  rotation: — 1st.  white  clover; 
2nd.  trefoil ; 3rd.  peas  or  tares,  fed  off  or  seeded  ; 4th.  red  clover.  Thus 
only  can  we  now  obtain  good  crops  of  red  clover.” 
There  is  another  point  about  clover  w'hich  deserves  chemical 
inquiry,  the  use  of  gypsum  upon  this  crop.  In  Germany  and  North 
America  its  use  is  widely  prevalent,  and  the  result  great.  In  Eng- 
land it  has  been  known  to  double  the  crop  of  clover,  but  we  cannot 
tell  beforehand  where  it  will  answer ; nay,  on  the  same  field,  a 
farmer  informed  me  it  answered  on  one  part  and  failed  on  the  other. 
According  to  Boussingault,  it  fails  on  moist  land  and  answers  on 
