Amos Howard discovered a weed growing near Mt Barker which
proved to be a significant soil enhancer in the poor Australian
soils and contributed to the enhancement of the Australian
Amos William Howard was born on 31 May 1848 Silk Mills,
Watford HRT, the son of William Howard, a gardener, and
Hester. He arrived in South Australia as an assisted passenger
Lightning in July 1876 with his wife, Eliza nee
Rowe and three children and settled at Blakiston near
in the Adelaide Hills where he established a plant nursery
for garden plants.
It is claimed that one day in 1889 he went
to the farm of Michael Daly to buy a cow and noticed a weed
growing on the property. This European plant called Subterranean
Clover (Trifolium subterraneum) infused
the soil with nitrogen, an essential element in good horticulture
and its qualities were quickly taken up by Howard and promoted.
Eventually he developed commercial quantities of the seed
and the first sales occurred in January 1907. It was subsequently
named the miracle
plant of the century and was credited with transforming
millions of infertile hectares into productive pasture.
the farming community, Amos Howard remains largely unknown.
He is remembered in a wayside marker on the Princes Highway
where he first discovered the clover growing and on the Mt
Barker Showground gates. The Howard Memorial Research Fellowship
of the Australian
Institute of Agricultural Science was established in 1967.
One of the cultivars of subterranean clover is named Howard.
Howard died at his residence Beauvale in 2 March 1930 and
was buried in the Blakiston Cemetery.