CLOVER AND SOIL CONDITIONS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8338, 25 January 1913, Page 2

CLOVER AND SOIL CONDITIONS

In writing on the “Conditions Il«ssential to Clover growing,’ Prolessor Wm. P. Brooks, ot the Massachusetts Experiment Station, says: ‘The writer has never seen a case where, if a soil be brought into proper conditions as to drainage and freedom from acidity,, and well stocked with phosphates and potash, clovers have failed to grow; and he never has observed clover plants in any locality and failed to find abundance of nodules on their roots. It is, however, of course a possibility that there may lie localities where it will pay to inoculate the soil designed for clover with suitable bacteria. This inoculation may be carried out in either of two ways. First soil from a locality where clover thrives and where the nodules are known to be abundant may bo scattered over the field whore the clover is to ho sown, and immediately harrowed in. Five or six hundred pounds of such soil per acre will be sufficient. Second, a culture of the proper species of bacteria may lie used in accordance with directions which will be furnished with it. There is no crop on the farm concerning which there is more comptaim than with clover. This ought to convince farmers that something has been at work rendering the soil unfit for clover growing, llight alongside of farms where the owners complained bitterly over the loss of their clover have we seen the plant growing abundantly ana steadily by the side of the road or on some gravelly knoll. Just so with sweet clover. What is the reason of this? In our opinion it is that the roadside soil is sweet and with plenty of lime in it, whereas in the field the lime is exhansted by years of cropping and made so sour that the clover bacteria cannot exist, and so clover is a failure. Now, with the average farmer this state of affairs will continue for about twenty years before ho will put two and two together and wake up to what ho should do.