CLOVER THE RENOVATOR.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 59, 7 June 1873, Page 3

CLOVER THE RENOVATOR.

(From the Toronto Globe). The value of clover is yet scarcely appreciated by most farmers. Few of them either sow land enough with this crop or sow it thick enough. Mechi holds forth day by day upon the principles of thin sowing, and upon the advantages that accrue therefrom. Let us not be led astray. When we have brought our land to such a state of perfect culture and great richness as is the soil of Tiptree farm, then may we begin to experiment upon the relative values of thick and thin sowing. We propose to consider this question of thick or thin sowing of clover seed. Advocates upon both sides are to be found in the Canada Farmer for 1870; but as many of our readers are new subscribers, we would endeavor to lay down a few rules for the guidance of those who wish, by a liberal use of clover, to bring their land into good heart. Of the green manures, undoubtedly clover is the very best. The practice of ploughing up—to rot —full crops of such succulent plants as clover, dates back to the time of the ancient Romans.

The great difference between the effects of exhaustion upon land of green crops and cereals, may be summed up in a few words. The cereal grows entirely from the food which it finds in the soil, while the many-leafed plant draws its sustenance almost entirely from the atmosphere. Why is it that the beneficial effects of a rain storm are so much more quickly observable upon grass than upon a cereal ? Because the rainwater not only carries its inherent plant-food to the lungs or leaves of the crop directly, but it also beats down the nitrogen and ammonia that have been suspended for many days over the surface of the earth. If we then expose a large surface of green crop to the action of the atmosphere, as the receivers of rain, we shall gather into the body of the green crops—where it will be retained and not lose itself in the depth of the soil—a store-house of all these foods, carbonic acid, nitrogen, oxygen, sulphur, &c.; which are contained in large quantities in rain-water. We store this food in the plant, and if we plough under that plant before it has made its final call upon the food stored away, i.e., before it ripens and dies, we shall give to the earth a large portion of plant-food, which will be available to the succeeding crop, as the green manure gradually decomposes and becomes amalgamated with the contiguous particles of the soil. Therefore we should expose, before ploughing-down, the greatest available surface of green clover ; and this can be done most effectually by thick growth of the plant. The more plants, the more surface exposed to the atmosphere, and the more mouths ever sucking in the rich juices of the air and rain.

Again, from a plentiful supply of seed we have a thick growth of plants, and the more closely compacted that growth when we plough the plants down, the more rapidly will decomposition set in. Let us now look at the growth of clover in another light. Supposing that upon rich clean land we sow our clover seed in quantities such as the advocates of thin sowing require ; the result will be great coarse hay; the stock eat the leaves and will leave the stalks. What we require for the cow, the sheep, and the hog, is a sweet, tender, fine clover hay, the chewing of which causes no difficulty, and of which none is trodden under foot and wasted. We would approve of no rotation in Canada in which clover does not often appear. In many parts we have no means of buying animal manure, and there is no farmer that can manufacture sufficient at home to thoroughly renovate his land, unless, indeed, under the supposition that hq should buy feed other than that raised on the farm. .

Let such as would keep the soil rich, and have at all times a decomposing vegetable matter as a nursery from which the tender rootlets of a crop when . first sown may draw their nourishment, nrovide such, by decaying of clover. Soil, when-first ploughed and a portion taken up in the hand, should show an abun'dance of these rotting vegetable fibres to be in good heart. Then let us not only sow clover as a crop, but us manure also, whenever we may look forward'to the profitable ploughing down of the same, at any period from one to three years.

If possible avoid exposing horses to severe storms. Use the brush freely, and feed more or less grain. A common mistake is to keep horses in the stable for days or weeks, and then when they are worked letting them stand out in the wet or cold. The horses are weak from want of exercise and nutritious food, and when they get home they are in an exhausted condition. Grain is perhaps then given to them, and the end is indigestion and colic,—-perhaps death. A warm bran mash might have saved them. But steady work and liberal feeding are the true preventatives,- "*