grown clover, the
application of phosphoric acid and potash being the same. When two tons
of well-cured clover hay are harvested in June, removing about 80
pounds of nitrogen, 45 to 50 pounds are left for the soil. The amounts
of potash are about the same, while phosphoric acid is much less in
amount.

Physical Benefit of the Roots.--While the roots and stubble contain
less than two fifths of the total plant-food in a clover crop, one may
not safely infer that the removal of the crop for hay reduces the
beneficial effect of the clover to the soil fully 60 per cent, or more.
The roots break up the soil in a way not possible to a mass of tops
plowed down. They improve the physical condition of the subsoil as well
as the top soil. The amount of the benefit depends in part upon the
nature of the land. Its value cannot be surely determined, but the
facts are called to mind as an aid to judgment in deciding upon the
method of handling the clover crop.

Used as a Green Manure.--Where dependence must be placed upon clover as
a fertilizer, little or no manure being returned to the land, at least
one of the two clover crops within the year should be left on the land.
The maximum benefit from clover, when left on the land, can be obtained
by clipping it before it is sufficiently heavy to smother the plants,
leaving it as a mulch. When the cutter-bar of the mower is tilted
upward, the danger of smothering is reduced. Truckers, remote from
supplies of manure, have found it profitable to make two such clippings
just prior to blossoming stage, securing a third heavy growth. The
amount of humus thus obtained is large, and the benefit of the mulch is
an important item.

Some growers clip the first crop for a mulch, and later secure a seed
crop. The early clipping and the mulch cause increase in yield of seed.

A common practice is to take one crop off for hay, and to leave the
second for plowing down the following spring. Early harvesting of the
clover for hay favors the second crop.

When to turn Down.--When the maximum benefit is desired for the soil
from a crop of clover, the first growth should not be plowed down. Its
office should be that of a mulch. In its decay all the mineral
plant-food and most of the nitrogen go into the soil. The second crop
should come to maturity, or near it. As a rule, there is gain, and not
loss, by letting the second crop lie on the ground until spring if a
spring-planted crop is to follow. Some f