average clover sod leaves in the soil in 
round numbers about 900 pounds of dry 
substance, 7,000 pounds of organic r matter. 
and nearly 2,000 pounds of ash, while the 
phosphoric acid amounts to 75 pounds, the 
potash to 82 pounds and the nitrogen to 
nearly 200 pounds. 
From these and other experiments, as 
well as the practical experience of farmers 
in this country as well as in Europe, the 
value of clover as a fertilizing crop is seen. 
Joseph Harris—so widely known as an au¬ 
thority in agriculture— calls clover the 
“grand renovating crop of America,” and 
for the climate and soil of nearly all parts of 
this country, he is right. Taking into ac¬ 
count the amount of plant nutrition that 
clover leaves in the soil, when the crop is 
plowed under, either in the shape of green 
manure or when the soil is turned down full 
of fiberous roots—which not only add 
greatly to its fertility in the way of manu- 
rial matter, but have brought up salts from 
the subsoils as well as penetrated in all di¬ 
rections and thereby vastly improve the 
mechanical condition of the land—we can 
readily discerne why many experienced 
farmers consider clover indispensable in 
any well regulated system of husbandry. 
But the advantages are still more. It is 
already in the field without cost of hauling 
or spreading, and its distribution is even, 
uniform and perfect. Nor are its effects 
ephemeral for, successive crops for several 
years attest its quickening power. For ma¬ 
ny years it has been relied upon as the main 
stay of numbers of intelligent men who 
have made a specialty of wheat. Employ¬ 
ed with plaster and sheep it has been possi¬ 
ble for many Michigan farmers to keep up 
the fertility of their lands and annually 
obtain average crops, (and even better,)of 
wheat. One of these—a man whose meth¬ 
od long since gave the reputation of an in¬ 
telligent and successful farmer—says he 
considers clover of as much value as a fer¬ 
tilizer as a crop of corn is for fattening 
stock and making manure. 
The complex action of clover, plaster anc 
droppings of sheep in restoring fertility to 
worn wheat lands or giving to those natur¬ 
ally deficient, consists in supplying soluble 
lime and sulphuric acid—two constituents 
consumed in large quantities by clover. 
These two elements are contained in plaster 
(sulphate of lime,) which is sown with 
clover, and also upon the young plants 
while they are damp with dew or after a 
shower. The result generally is a.luxuriant 
growth if a good “catch” has been secured. 
The plants send down their long tap roots 
into the subsoil, collect such inorganic 
matter as they find there and bring it to 
;he surface. The flocks eat the green plants 
and scatter the constituents of the clover 
over the ground, as well as the ammonia 
formed in the urine, and when the clover is 
Mowed up. all that it has received from the 
subsoil and the air is again rendered more 
or less available for plant food by decay, 
and in this way surface soil is rendered 
fertile. 
It is said that this is not real manuring: 
that nothing has been supplied except a lit¬ 
tle lime and sulphuric acid that the soil or 
the air did not contain before, and that the 
effect in time must be to impoverish the 
soil. Such may be the case in some kinds 
of soil, but we have the testimony of Hon. 
Geo. Geddes, of New York— one of the 
most noted farmer in the United States,— 
that this does not follow as a rule. He 
has a field which for more than three quar¬ 
ters of a century has been manured with 
nothing except clover grown upon it and 
plowed in, upon which, has been grown 
wheat, corn, oats, barley and grass; for 
fifty years plaster has been used upon the 
clover, and the land shows no diminution 
of fertility. His experience accords with 
that of many farmers of lesser note, going 
to prove that a judicious use of clover will 
restore lost fertility to land and enable it 
to produce good crops steadily for a long 
period. 
There are other ameliorating crops, as 
buckwheat and field peas, which are plow¬ 
ed under as green manures, and in some in¬ 
stances at the start they may be preferable 
to clover, as in cases of sandy land where 
it may be difficult to get a catch of clover: 
but the latter is the farmer’s great reliance 
in restoring and retaining the fertility of 
his land. 
