Four-leaf clover

“ Gerarde says that the meadow Trefoil (especially that with the black half-moon upon the leaf) , pounded with a little honey, “takes away the pin and web in the eies, ceasing the pain and inflammation thereof if it be strained and dropped therein.” The finding of a four-leaved Clover is considered especially fortunate, not only in England, but in France, Switzerland, and Italy. It is believed to almost ensure happiness, and in the case of young girls a husband very speedily. ”

“ In that wild garden were four varieties of clover—the white, creeping clover of blue-grass lawns; the pinkish purple-headed clover of farm meadows; the tall, shrub-like sweet clover, with tassel blossoms of white, and a blood-red clover, with pointed heads like pine cones. The crimson clover is a foreigner. Grown all over Europe, it is not often seen in America. In that wild garden it was a well-born emigrant among hardy and rough American weeds. ”

“ It is from the second cutting that seed is usually saved. Four quarts of seed is a common quantity to sow per acre. Red clover makes excellent hay, except for horses. Its seed, like that of alfalfa, weighs sixty pounds per bushel, and its yield is from one to five bushels per acre.
White Clover (Trifolium repens) is a very useful pasture and honey plant, but is not used for hay. It spreads rapidly, and is widely used for sowing with other pasture grasses. ”

“ Superstitions of the four-leafed Clover have lingered in the imaginations of men almost more than those of any other plant. To be efficacious in bringing good luck, the little talisman must be found unawares. If slipped into the shoe of a lover, it will insure his safe return. The finding of a five-leaved Clover brings bad luck. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When crimson clover is sown so early in the season that it has at least three to four months in which to grow before winter sets in, the benefits to the land from sowing the seed will usually more than pay for the seed and labor, even though it should not survive the winter. ”

“ It is afforded by the common red clover. Obviously the clovers, with their three leaflets in each leaf, stand in the midst of the great family of papilionaceous plants, the leaves of which are generally pinnate. Systematic affinity suggests that the "three leaved" forms must have been derived from pinnate ancestors, evidently by the reduction of the number of the leaflets. In some species of clover the middle of the three is more or less stalked, as is ordinarily the case in pinnate leaves; in others it is as sessile as are its neighbors. ”

“ The seed, when genuine, which unfortunately is very often not the case, germinates as freely as ever, and no greater difficulty than heretofore is experienced in having a full plant during autumn and the greater part of winter; but over most part of the country, the farmer, after having his hopes raised by seeing a thick cover of vigorous-looking clover plants over his field, finds to his dismay, by March or April, that they have either entirely disappeared, or are found only in capricious patches here and there over the field. ”

“ As the individual flowers fade—and the lowest fade first—they become brown and scale-like and turn downwards, and the dry brown corolla remaining attached to the seed forms an important aid in its dispersal by the wind. The Brown Clover is widely distributed in the mountain regions of Central Europe. It will be readily recognised by its globular flower-heads of yellow flowers and bright green leaves made up of three leaflets, which are arranged opposite to one another on the upper part of the stem. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is, therefore, pre-eminently a catch crop, and because of this, when conditions admit of it, serves a purpose in American agriculture, which can be served by none of the other varieties of clover that are now grown. It has much power to grow in cool weather, when the clovers are practically dormant. It does not cease to grow until the ground has become frozen, and as soon as the frost leaves the soil growth begins at once; hence, the greater relative value this plant has for areas in which the winters are mild. ”

“ 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. ”

“ An entire contrast to the large and showy Hungarian clover is the modest, low-growing, dainty, white clover, its fragrance equally delicious, but more subtle and delicate. The white clover has a short, simple stem, its leaves are much smaller than those of the red clover, and the plant hugs the ground, having a running habit. It is such a close grower that where it once possesses the soil it is capable of crowding out the most noxious weeds, even the much-detested plantain. Among these white clover will be found heads of a larger growth, more rounded and of a pure flesh tint. ”

“ In the same way a field that has been much poached by sheep while consuming turnips upon it, and which has afterwards been ploughed up in an unkindly state, will have the clover prosper upon it, when it fails in other cases where the soil appears in far better condition. If red clover can be again made a safe crop, it will be a boon indeed to agriculture. Its seeds are usually sown along with a grain crop, any time from the 1st of February to May, at the rate of 12 ℔ to 20 ℔ per acre when not combined with other clovers or grasses. ”

“ T. incarnatum, crimson or Italian clover, though not hardy enough to withstand the climate of Scotland in ordinary winters, is a most valuable forage crop in England. It is sown as quickly as possible after the removal of a grain crop at the rate of 18 ℔ to 20 ℔ per acre. It is found to succeed better when only the surface of the soil is stirred by the scarifier and harrow than when a ploughing is given. It grows rapidly in spring, and yields an abundant crop of green food, peculiarly palatable to live stock. ”

“ When clovers, except the crimson variety, are sown for the exclusive purpose of adding to the fertility of the land, they are usually sown along with some other crop that is to be harvested, the clover being plowed under the following autumn or the next spring. These are usually sown without being mixed with other varieties, and the two kinds most frequently sown primarily to enrich the land are the medium red and crimson varieties. ”

“ Although this plant is not extensively grown in the United States, it would seem probable that it will grow at least reasonably well in a majority of the States. The exceptions will be those lacking in moisture in the absence of irrigation. It will grow best in those that more properly lie within the clover belt; that is, in those that lie northward. It grows with much vigor in Oregon and Washington west of the Cascade Mountains. In Canada, yellow clover will grow with much vigor in all areas susceptible of cultivation, unless on certain of the western prairies. ”

“ A stand of medium red clover is sometimes secured by what may be termed self-sowing. For instance, where clover has been cut for hay and then allowed to mature even but a portion of the seed before being plowed under the same autumn, the seed thus buried remains in the ground without sprouting. When the land is again plowed to the same depth and sown with some kind of grain, the clover seed thus brought to the surface will germinate. ”

“ Goodrich and McNeal are both very unwell with the pox which they contracted last winter with the Chinnook women this forms my inducement principally for taking them to the falls of the Missouri where during an intervail of rest they can use the murcury freely. I found two speceis of native clover here, the one with a very narrow small leaf and a pale red flower, the other nearly as luxouriant as our red clover with a white flower the leaf and blume of the latter are proportionably large. ”

“ The plants which grow will render much assistance in keeping the land in a good condition of tilth, as well as in enhancing its fertility.
When clover seed is much grown, therefore, on any piece of land, the quantity of seed sown may be reduced materially. In fact, it may be so much reduced that it has been found possible to grow clover in rotation for many years without adding seed. The first growth of the clover was taken as hay, and the second growth as seed. The ground was then plowed and a crop of corn was taken. ”

“ This is the first book published which treats on the growth, cultivation and treatment of clovers as applicable to all parts of the United States and Canada, and which takes up the entire subject in a systematic way and consecutive sequence. The importance of clover in the economy of the farm is so great that an exhaustive work on this subject will no doubt be welcomed by students in agriculture, as well as by all who are interested in the tilling of the soil. ”

“ Turning to a somewhat different class, there are some clovers which protect their seeds in a quite distinct manner, by merely turning them out of sight. Common Dutch clover does this in a simple yet very noticeable fashion. It bears its pretty white flowers in tall globular heads on a lengthened footstalk, which renders them extremely conspicuous objects to the fertilizing bees. But each flower is stalked within the head, and, as soon as it has been fertilized, it turns downward, and fades brown against the common footstalk. ”

“ Place in the Rotation.—Since sweet clover seed is more commonly scattered in byplaces, or is self-sown from plants that have run wild, it can scarcely be said that it has ever been grown as a regular crop and in a regular rotation. Nor is it ever likely to become a factor in such a rotation unless its properties shall be so modified that it can be grown acceptably as a pasture plant. ”

“ One of the special advantages of sweet clover is that it produces good pasturage somewhat earlier in the spring than most forage crops. In the North, with the exception of the extreme northern portion of the United States, it will furnish a cutting of hay in June or excellent pasturage until that time and a crop of hay or seed in late summer. In the South two cuttings of hay and a seed crop may be harvested. After maturing seed the plants die. ”

“ It should be possible to grow prodigious crops of white clover in certain of the northern Rocky Mountain valleys, as, for instance, in Montana and Washington, where the conditions for the application of water to grow the plants and of withholding the same when ripening the seed are completely under the control of the husbandman. The soils in these valleys, as previously intimated, have high adaptation for growing white clover. ”

“ When grown for hay it is usually preferable to [Pg 151] sow the seed without admixture. But there may be instances in which medium red or alsike clover may improve the crop the first year or two that it is mown for hay. But where red clover grows much more vigorously than alfalfa the first season, it should not be thus sown in any considerable quantities, or the clover plants will injure the alfalfa plants by crowding and overshading. Nevertheless, alfalfa may frequently with profit form a considerable factor in clover grown as pasture. ”

“ Where the clovers grow well they make excellent cover crops as well as green manure crops. The chief difficulty with them is that of obtaining a good stand in a dry midsummer. The mammoth red and the medium red clovers are probably the best of their genus on the heavier soils, while crimson clover is best on sandy soils and where it will grow, on the lighter gravel loams. ”

“ In the Southern States, however, better results, relatively, will be obtained from sowing this clover on comparatively infertile lands, owing to the longer season which it has for continuous growth. Where the winters are possessed of considerable severity and when the protection of snow is more or less wanting, unless the plants are strong when they enter the winter, they are almost certain to perish. ”

“ Many more, equally interesting, must be left undescribed. Only for a single case more can I still find room—that of the subterranean clover, which has been driven by its numerous enemies to take refuge at last in a very remarkable and almost unique mode of protecting its offspring. This particular kind of clover affects smooth and close-cropped hillsides, where the sheep nibble down the grass and other herbage almost as fast as it springs up again. Now, clover seeds resemble their allies of the pea and bean tribe in being exceedingly rich in starch and other valuable foodstuffs. ”