Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1866-08-11

letting clover go to seed changesit from |
a renovating to an exhausting crop.
John Johnson, in letter now before |
us, says he has frequently sold from |
500 to $1,000 worth and over of |
clover seed, in a year. He thinks it one |
of the most profitable crops farmer |
can grow, but he adds, ''I have known |
crop of clover seed to exhaust the land |
more than a crop of wheat. +" The con-
clusion is this: Glover is a great reno
waiting crop when grown for hay, for
pasture, or for blowing under, and
should consequently be sown literally.
On the ether hand, raising seed is high
ly profitable, but somewhat exhausting
to the land Raise clover seed, but use
the money obtained from its sale to en-
rich the land A bushel of clover seed
will usually buy six or eight bushels of
peas or beans, and these fed to stock on
tie farm will restore to the soil, in the
form of manure. 81 or eight times as
much plant-food as the crop of clover
seed removed. DO not try to cheat the
soil. Do not induce it to give You
good crop of clover seed, and then re-
fuse il a share in the profits.
In raising clover, cut the first crop
early-say in this latitude, the first or
second week in June. 1t is also i'm
portant that the first crop should be
mown as evenly as possible that the
plant may start equally, and the future
crop of seed ripen all at the same time.
1t is desirable to get the seed early, say
about the first or second week IN Sep
TENDER. Occasionally a large crop will
ripen in October; but at that season the
weather is usually unpropitous, and a
a large number of heads when ripe are
apt to drop off IN wet weather, both
| before and after they are cut. A large
growth of foliage is sometimes obtained
| by sowing gypsum on the clover after
the hay crop is removed, but III cool,
growing season, the seed ia this case IS
apt to ripen poorly.
The largest crops are obtained, other
| things being equal, from land seeded
with nothing but ciover-and IN this
case the seed should be sOwn pretty
thickly, say six or eight quarts per acre.
This thick seeding has double advan-
tage: You get finer quality OF clover
| hay, and the plants being thick on the
| ground, the crop IS not SO apt to lodge,
and can be mown more evenly. Six
| bushels per acre is sometimes grown on
| good land when clover alone is sown,
| but three or four bushels is "a full aver
age. The expense of growing, harvest
! ing and hulling is very little, and the
seed is practically nearly all profit.
Let not the farmer who neglects and
starves his land think that he can get
rich by growing clover seed. The
profits are not for HIM. There is no
better indication of good land and good
! treatment than luxuriant crops of clO-
yer. The land that will produce good
clover will produce good wheat or other
grain-and the negligent farmer de-
serves neither one or the other. Let him
give the soil good tillage and liberal
treatment, and it will prove grateful,
| but if ne starVes the soil the soil will
starve him.-AmericaR AgricmturdiiSt.
TEMPERATURE AT WHICH SEED GERAn-
MATES.
The celebrated Swiss botanist, NJ. A.
De Candolle, has published an account
of numerous experiments upon the
temperature at which seeds will germl-
nate. We give q few of his results,
with respect to well known pl nts, re-
| duciug the temperature to the Fahren-
heit scale. The seed of common white
mustard will germifiate at or a little be-
low the freezing point, while white
clover remained dormant at Al ID deg.
IU terminated when the temperature
was raised only one degree above that
Indian corn would not start at AZ deg,
but terminated at a temperature very
near As deg. Melon seed refused to
terminate at 53 deg, but did below
CO IL. While there is a limit of tenn
perature below which each particular
seed will not terminate, there is also a
| Limit in the other direction, and seeds
fail to start when the temperature Is
too high, the point, as In the other
case, varying with the species; the
greater part of some seeds of white
clover did not terminate above 81 IL
deg. "Fhus seeds only terminate be-
tween certain limits OF temperature, and
those which can only do SO within mar
row limits are least able to extend them
selves geographically"