Science and Practice in Farm CultivationBuckman, James
Science
Science and Practice in Farm Cultivation
Buckman, James
Agriculture
The simplest peasant has sense enough to see, and all
agriculturists agree with him, that clover, turnips, hay, &c.,
cannot be sold off from a farm without most materially damaging the
cultivation of the corn. Every one willingly admits that the sale
and exportation of clover, turnips, &c., exercise a detrimental
influence on the growing of corn. “Above all, let us take care to
have plenty of fodder; the corn crop will then take care of
itself.” But that the _exportation of corn_ may possibly exercise
an injurious influence on the cultivation of clover or turnips;
that it is, above all, indispensable to restore to the soil the
mineral constituents of the corn, to enable the clover or turnip
crop to “take care of itself;” in other words, that in order to
grow clover, turnip, &c., we must manure the land—this is a notion
utterly incomprehensible, nay absolutely impossible, for most
agriculturists. For, is not the clover grown for the sake of
manure? What advantage, then, would there be if it were necessary
to manure again to produce the clover? _This clover the farmer
expects to grow for nothing._
The mutual relations existing in the order of nature between the
two classes of plants are, however, as clear as daylight. The
mineral constituents of the clover, turnips, &c., and of the corn,
form the conditions for the production of the clover, turnips, &c.,
and of the corn, and they are in their elements quite identical.
The clovers, &c., require for their growth a certain amount of
phosphoric acid, potash, lime, magnesia,—so does the corn. The
mineral constituents contained in the clover are the same as those
in the corn, _plus_ a certain excess of potash, lime, and sulphuric
acid. The clover draws these constituents from the soil; the cereal
plant receives them,—we may so represent it from the clover. In
selling his clover, therefore, the farmer removes from his land the
conditions for the production of corn. If, on the other hand, he
sells his corn, there will be no clover crop in the following year;
_for in his corn he has sold some of the most essential conditions
for the production of a clover crop_.—pp. 183-5.
This discussion, then, upon the so-called clover-sickness leads us to
adopt the following propositions:—
First. That the larger induced plant of our cultivated clovers has not,
as a rule, that perennial constitution of the smaller wild species.
Second. Even its induced habit is much deteriorated by transportation
under adverse climatal circumstances.
Third. The seed itself is often full of weeds, which, by gaining the
mastery, kill out the young clover plant.
Fourth. This effect is enhanced by growing clover with barley, in which,
if not smothered, it must become weakened.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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