ures of
improvement that are to be sought for, but there will probably be
agreement with reference to the following in desirable varieties: 1.
They will have the power to grow quickly and continuously under average
conditions. This power will render them valuable as pasture plants in
proportion as they possess it. 2. They will produce many stems not too
coarse in character. This will affect favorably the character of the hay
and will also have a bearing on increase in the production of seed. 3.
There should be an abundance of leaves. Such production will affect
favorably palatability in the pasture and also in the hay. 4. The
blossoms should be so short that the honey which they contain may be
accessible to the ordinary honey bee. The importance of this
characteristic cannot be easily overestimated. It would not only tend to
a great increase in seed production through the favorable influence
which it would have on fertilization, but it would greatly increase the
honey harvest that would be gathered every year, and 5. They should be
possessed of much vigor and hardihood; that is, they should have much
power to grow under adverse conditions, as of drought and cold. The
person who will furnish a variety of red clover possessed of these
characteristics will confer a boon on American agriculture.

=Bacteria and Clovers.=--The fact has long been known, even as long ago
as the days of Pliny, and probably much before those days, that clover,
when grown in the rotation, had the power to bring fertility to the
soil. This fact was generally recognized in modern agriculture and to
the extent, in some instances, of giving it a place even in the short
rotations. But until recent decades, it was only partially known how
clover accomplished such fertilization. It was thought it thus gathered
fertility by feeding deeply in the subsoil, and through the plant food
thus gathered, the root system of the plants were so strengthened in the
cultivated surface section of soil as to account for the increased
production in the plants that followed clover. According to this view,
the stems and leaves of the plants were thus equally benefited and,
consequently, when these were plowed under where they had grown these
also added plant food to the cultivated portion of the soil, in addition
to what it possessed when the clover seed which produced the plants was
sown upon it. In brief, this theory claimed that fertility was added by
the clover plants g