Clover Fungus

Clover has beconie so important an I element in Michigan farming as a I ovating and improving erop, so ] ;ial to successful wheat growing, that í iny disease or insect which threatens I w destroy it should receive prompt I aUention. Last winter we published i ar extract f rom a letter by Mr. Williim Strong, of Kalamazoo, in whicli 1b spoke of certain clover flelds in that vicinity having died in such a manner ai to suggest the presence of some new cbver disease. In last week's Country Ghntleman he gives some more recent olservations on the same subject, from waich we condense the following. have, he says, observed this new clver disease the present season, and sohave others, but the injury has not besn so great as last year or the year pr'vious, yet upon some farms it has bem quite bad this year. I have, in answer to inquiries received quite a mimber of replies, which show that the damage was quite extensive last yeai. 1 will refer to a couple of instanees, and could give many more if nccessary, which show that it is not contned to this town, by any means: Mr. I. N. Stearns, one, of the proprietors of the Union Nurseries of this plane, informs me that he noticed large qasntities of their clover dying, and that my description of how it died all over the field, clear up to. the time of houding out, was just the way with theirs. Dr. W. B. Southard, a practicing physiciSB of this place, and a very observing man, who owns a farm, just out of town, where he raises large quantities of fruit and honey, tells me that a good deal of hls clover has died this season from this cause, and says that he has observed it quite closely, and although his clover bas made quite a erop, so much died that the sod is very imperfect. Upon the piece to which 1 referred, where one-third at east was killed, it was the mammoth clover, although it branched out wontlerfulbí- and Indurad haUl.v. so as to give the appèaranoe ot i full erop, (and intact did yield alrnost five bushels of seed per acre, fer which I reseived the first prize as a field erop, and plowed in the stubble last fall for wheat, which stubble was from four to live feet long,) yet it was not a good sod, but stood in stools here and there, many times leaving bare spots from one to three feet across, where in the spring every square foot was covered with clover. In the New York Tribune of May 16 Prof. C. V. Riley of Missouri, describes a clover-root borer, and its ner of working, but Mr. Strong is satislied that the trouble is not caused by this pest, as Prof. Riley shows that the insect works in the latter part of the season ; eats down into the roots, filling the burrows with its excrement, and prefers clover roots that have ben injured most, and have perhaps begun to deeay from oíd age. In the case at Kalamazoo the injury is done in the fore part of the year, when farmers expect their flrst erop, and while the plant ought to have its greatest vitality, and when the plant and crown are dead, the roots for some time appear to be perfectly sound. Neither is it brought about by close pasturing the flrst fall after the grain erop has been removed, for the piece to which Mr. Strong referred, never had a hoof on it to pasture after the clover seed was sowed. This is not the only field which has been injured, but every clover field upon his farm, last year and the year previous, whether of the large or the medium sort, was more or less injured. Many other farmers of Kalamazoo county have sustained injury by this disease for the past three seasons. The Country Gentleman suggests that samples of the diseased clover be submitted to some expert for scientific examination, and it seems strange that this has not been done long ago.