Thomas Shaw

“ But the seed crop is more injured by drought than by too much rain. When injured by drought the growth will not be sufficiently strong, or, if it is, the blossoms will be of a pale red tint. Warm winds while the seed is forming are also adverse to seed production, since they cause the crop to mature too quickly. Some experience will enable the capable observer to forecast with no little certainty the probable yield of the seed. If the indications point to a yield of seed less than 2 bushels per acre, it is deemed more profitable, as a rule, to cut the crop for hay. ”

“ Oats are the least suitable of all the crops named as a nurse crop, since they are characterized by a dense growth of leaves, which shut out the sunlight too much when the growth is rank. Notwithstanding, the oat crop may well serve such an end when sown thinly and cut for hay. Mixed grains grown together, as, for instance, wheat and oats, or a mixture of the three, answer quite as well for a nurse crop as clover and oats. The objection to them for such use arises from the fact that they are frequently sown more thickly than grain sown alone. ”

“ So pronounced is this habit of growth in alfalfa, that in many localities, if the first growth is allowed to produce seed, but little subsequent growth will be made again the same season. The second cutting, all things considered, is the most favorable to seed production, as, unless on irrigated lands, the third cutting [Pg 181] is not usually possessed of that vigor necessary to induce abundant seeding in the plants.
The yields of seed are also much influenced by moisture. An excess of moisture is more unfavorable to the production of seed than a shortage in the same. ”

“ The fact should not be overlooked that soils may have the requisite physical conditions for growing alfalfa, and they may possess in fair supply the essential elements of plant food, and yet alfalfa will not succeed at the first when sown on these, because of the absence of the soil bacteria, the presence of which is essential to the vigorous growth of the plants. Because of this, growers should be slow to conclude that alfalfa will not flourish on the soils on which they sow it until they have first tried to grow it on those soils that have been inoculated with the requisite alfalfa bacteria. ”

“ When medium red clover is sown for being plowed under as green manure, it is always sown with a nurse crop. Some farmers, in localities well adapted to the growth of clover, sow more or less of [Pg 89] the medium red variety on all, or nearly all, of the land devoted to the growth of such cereals as rye, wheat, barley and oats, when the land is to be plowed the autumn or spring following. Reduced quantities of seed are used. They believe that the benefit from the young clover plants to the land will more than pay for the cost of the seed and the sowing of the same. ”

“ In seasons that are quite dry in the spring, it makes but little growth and produces but few blossoms; hence, in such seasons bees can obtain but little honey, relatively, from such a source. It would doubtless be good policy, therefore, for the growers to encourage the sowing of alsike clover where bees are much kept, since the growth of this clover is less hindered by dry weather at the season named. Less close pasturing than is commonly practiced would favorably influence the production of honey from white clover, and would also result in considerably greater yields of pasture. ”

“ On land producing a winter crop, as rye or wheat, they can be sown in a majority of instances as soon as the snow has melted. That condition of soil known as honeycombed furnishes a peculiarly opportune time for sowing these seeds, as it provides a covering for them while the land is moist, and thus puts them in a position to germinate as soon as growth begins. Such a condition, caused by alternate freezing and thawing, does not occur on sandy soils. Where it does not so occur, sowing ought to be deferred until the surface of the ground has become dry enough to admit of covering with a harrow. ”

“ In cold areas the hazard is much greater from such grazing than in those that are mild, and likewise, it is greater when the growth is only moderately vigorous than in areas where alfalfa grows with the vigor of a weed, as in Western mountain valleys. In areas where the winters are cold, and especially where the snowfall is light and the winds have a wide sweep, the animals which graze upon alfalfa should be removed in time to allow the plants to grow up to the height of several inches before the advent of winter. ”

“ The advantages of hand sowing are that it may be done under some conditions when no other method will answer as well, as, for instance, when it is sown upon snow or upon the ground honeycombed. The disadvantages are that it takes more time than some of the other methods, especially when the sower only scatters the seed with one hand, that it cannot be thus sown when the wind blows stiffly or fitfully, and most of all, only a limited number of persons who sow seed are thus able to sow it with complete regularity. ”

“ It is not considered a good hay plant, but its value for pasture is considerable, although, as a rule, animals do not take kindly to it at first, as they do to alfalfa or medium red clover, but later they become fond of it, but less so, probably, in the case [Pg 293] of horses than of other animals. Being a legume, it is helpful in enriching the land, and being a free grower, it improves the soil mechanically through its root growth, and also through the stems and leaves, when these are plowed under. ”

“ But it has been noticed that when soil is freely supplied with nitrogen, as in liberal applications of farmyard manure, the plants do not form nodules so freely as when nitrogen is less plentiful in the soil. The inference would, therefore, seem to be correct, that when plants are well supplied with nitrogen in the soil they are less diligent, so to speak, in gathering it from the air. In other words, clover plants will take more nitrogen from the air when the soil is more or less nitrogen hungry than when nitrogen abounds in the soil. ”

“ When clover is grown in short rotations, its power to destroy weeds is increased. For instance, when the medium red or mammoth varieties are grown in the three years' rotation of corn or some root crop, followed by grain seeded with clover, the effects upon weed eradication are very marked, if the cultivation given to the corn or roots is ample. Under such a system weeds could be virtually prevented from maturing seeds at any time, especially if the medium variety of clover were sown, and if the stubbles were mown some time subsequent to the harvesting of the grain crop. ”

“ The choice of hay may be one between a crop of beggar weed and no crop at all. All are agreed as to the renovation which it brings to soils; hence, when grown or allowed to grow on unproductive soil for a few years and then plowed under, the soil becomes productive. Since it grows late rather than early in the season where the seed is in the land, it will not interfere with the growth of the corn, but will come on later, and thus exert a beneficial influence on the soil. ”

“ If the grazing is not too close, the plants thereafter will sufficiently re-seed the land. It has been found quite possible in short rotations to secure pasture from Japan clover without sowing it on land on which it has once grown. But to accomplish this effectively, the grazing must not be so close as to preclude a self-seeding. By growing such plants for winter and spring grazing, as turf oats and sand vetches, and then grazing the Japan clover, which will grow later on lands thus managed, grazing may be furnished indefinitely from year to year. ”

“ Some kinds of clover are so persistent in their habit of growth that when once in the soil they remain, and therefore do not usually require renewal. These include the small white, the yellow, the Japan, burr clover and sweet clover. In soils congenial to these respective varieties, the seeds usually remain in the soil in sufficient quantities to restock the land with plants when it is again laid down to grass. Nearly all of these varieties are persistent seed producers; hence, even though grazed, enough seed is formed to produce another crop of plants. ”

“ Good crops can be grown on sandy loam soils, if well stored with vegetable matter, and at the same time fairly well impregnated with clay, but if one or both of these elements is lacking, adaptation in these soils will be correspondingly reduced.
On the average upland prairie soil, alsike clover [Pg 201] does not grow so vigorously as the medium red. The less of density that these possess under ordinary conditions, the less suitable are they to the needs of this plant, but when ample moisture is present, good crops may be grown on much of the soil in prairie areas. ”

“ Nevertheless, it is certainly better adapted to a moderately cool climate than to one that is hot, and to a moist, humid climate than to one that is dry. It has much power to live through dry seasons, but it will not thrive in a climate in which the rainfall is too little for the successful growth of small cereal grains. Where snow covers it in winter, this clover will grow on timber soils as far north as any kind of cereal can be made to mature; and it will also grow as far south as the Mexican boundary on the higher grounds, when there is enough moisture present to sustain it. ”

“ While it is an excellent pasture plant for stock, they do not relish it so highly as some other pasture plants; when forming seed, it is least valuable for horses, owing to the extent to which it salivates them. Its diminutive habit of growth unfits it for making meadows, unless in conjunction with other hay plants. In nutritive properties, it is placed ahead of medium red clover. Some growers have spoken highly of it as a pasture plant for swine.
Being a legume, it has the power of enriching soils with nitrogen, but probably not to so great an extent as the larger varieties of clover. ”

“ Whether it will be more advisable to sow the seed on bare ground earlier than the season when growth begins, or to sow later and cover with the harrow, will depend to a considerable degree upon the soil and the condition in which it happens to be. On timber soils newly cleaned the early sowing would be quite safe where the young plants are not liable to be killed after germination, because of the abundance of humus in them. On the same soils, early sowing would probably be preferable, even when much reduced in humus, providing they were in a honeycombed condition at the time of sowing. ”

“ Each plant contains several heads, and frequently a large number when the growth is not too crowded. When in full flower these are of a beautiful purple crimson, hence, a field of luxuriant red clover is beautiful to look upon. The stems of the plants are slightly hairy, and ordinarily they stand at least fairly erect and reach the height of about one foot or more; but when the growth is rank, they will grow much [Pg 58] higher, even as high as 4 feet in some instances, but when they grow much higher than the average given, the crop usually lodges. ”

“ But in orchards, it is sometimes grown from year to year by what may be termed a process of self-seeding. When the seed is not quite ripe in the heads, or even somewhat earlier, the orchard is plowed so as to leave some of the heads standing up along the line of the furrow. When these have matured, the land is harrowed, which scatters the seeds in the chaff, and from these another crop is produced. But to this plan there is the objection that it allows the clover to draw too heavily on the moisture in the soil before it is plowed under. ”

“ The bloom remains out for a considerable time, and free grazing has the effect of prolonging the period of bloom. Under such conditions, blossoms continue to form and mature seeds during much of the summer. When these escape being grazed, they fall down upon the land and aid in forming additional plants. Hence it is that when white clover has once possessed a soil, it so stores the land with seed possessed of so much vitality that subsequently white clover plants grow, as it were, spontaneously on these lands when they have been thus grazed even for a limited term of years. ”