Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-06-08
Green Clover, Peas, Buck

WHICH,
All cultivated lands require TO be resup-
piled according to their need with those
natural and inherent constituents of fertile
soils which are absorbed by the growing
plant and carried off in successive crops.
Upon this depends its productive capacity
for long series Of years. The best ma
nures are, therefore, those that abound in
certain mineral and vegetable substances,
in that state in which they are most readily
taken by the growing plant 1t would be
teaching the simplest elementary princi-
plies of farming for us to say anything here
concerning the merits Of barn-yard manure,
guano, or bone dust-but the value of green
crops ploughed under as forming an easily
accessible and highly beneficial fertilizer,
has never yet, we think, been regarded by
the generality of our farmers with the inn
portance il deserves. The beneficial in
fuence Of green crops turned under is much
better understood and appreciated in Eu-
rope, and especially among the thrifty
Germans, than it is with us. BY this
method the sandy wastes of Belgium have
been converted with bat little assistance
from other kinds Of manures into a fertile
loom. The farms there are for the most
part divided among small proprietors, and,
as they scarcely excoed fifty acres, they are
easily worked, and by patient industry, and
by the shrewd adaptation of means to ends
each farm has been cultivated almost TO the
perfection Of a garden. The Belgians,
and to a large extent their neigh
bors Of Holland, have been taught by
that best of all teachers, practical expe-
rience, that green plants plougbed under
will give, with the exception of ammonia,
all the constituents necessary to enrich the
soil upon which their crops are grown.
OF these constituents one-third may be de-
rived from the soil itself, and TO that ex-
tent are merely returned TO il in the green
crop that is ploughed under, but the re-
naming two.thirds are drawned from the
atmosphere, and are, therefore, clear
gain.
There are quite variety of green crops
which might be made useful in a course of
renovation, but the chief crops for this
purpose, which are adapted TO general
use BY our farmers, may be limited TO four
There are, LIST clover; ID, field peas; 3D.
buckwheat, 4th, broadcast corn. OF these
four the first on the list, and the first in
point Of excellence, and next to clover the
field pea, commonly known at the South as
the COW pea. In an exhaustive treatise on
this subject to be found in the report of the
Agricultural Department for 1864, the rel
alive values of different green crops when
ploughed under in the process of renova-
ting soils more or less exhausted by too
frequent cropping is very clearly presented.
We propose TO draw from this source such
points in a condensed form Jas are most
worthy Of attention and we also propose to
show at the same time, by comparative
statements, why this mode Of manuring is
beneficial TO the soil, and enables il to bear
heavy crops Of wheat and corn and rye |
and oats and barley on lands that previous |
" failed TO produce them remuneratiyely |
The value Of the red clover for manurial /
purposes consists in the fact that when de- |
composed il contains all the constituents |
that enter into the production a crop Of |
wheat, as the following analysis of clover |
as compared with wheat will show;