Book: Clovers and How to Grow Them

T >> Thomas Shaw >> Clovers and How to Grow Them




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. Hence, in areas where the rainfall for the season is very
abundant, but little seed will be produced. Where irrigation is
practiced, the excessive application of water would have a similar
effect, though less pronounced in degree; hence, the apportionment of
the water to the prospective needs of the seed crop calls for careful
adjustment. Where the first crop is grown for seed, where irrigation is
practiced, in many instances no water is applied until after the seed
crop has been harvested.

The seed is ready for being harvested when a majority of the seed-pods
assume a dark brown tint. The pods of later formation will still possess
a yellow tint, and some of them may still possess the green color. These
do not produce seed nearly equal in quality to the pods which ripen
earlier. To wait for all the later maturing pods to ripen before
harvesting the crop would mean the loss of much of the best seed through
shattering. Another test of maturity is made by shelling the pods in the
hand. When the seed can be thus shelled in a majority of the pods in a
single plant, it is ready for being harvested. Alfalfa seed shatters
easily; hence, it is important to harvest the seed crop with promptness
when it is ready, to handle it with due carefulness, and in some
instances to refrain from handling during the hottest hours of
sunshine.

The seed crop is sometimes cut with the mower and raked into winrows,
and in some instances put up into cocks. When it is handled thus, the
aim should be to do the work, as far as this may be practicable, in the
early and late hours of the day, but not, of course, while much dew is
on the crop. Sometimes the seed is drawn from the winrows to the
thresher; in other instances from the cocks, and in yet other instances
it is stacked before being threshed, a work that calls for the exercise
of much care in the storing of the crop, lest the seed should be injured
by heating in the stack. This method of harvesting is usually attended
with much loss of seed.

There is probably no better way of harvesting alfalfa than to cut it
with the self-rake reaper or the binder. The loose sheaves dry quickly,
and when lifted, the aim is to carry them directly to the thresher. Less
seed, it is considered, will be lost in this way than by the other mode
of harvesting given above, and the work is more expeditiously done. But
owing to the difficulty in securing a thresher to thresh the seed, it is
sometimes found necessary to stack the crop, but in areas where
irrigation is practiced such stacking is seldom necessary.

The seed is frequently threshed with the ordinary threshing machine, but
in many instances it is also threshed with a clover huller. The huller
does the work less quickly, but probably, on the whole, more perfectly.
Threshing machines, with or even without certain adjustments in the
arrangement of the teeth in the cylinder and concave, and with extra
screens, are now doing the work with much despatch, and with a fair
measure of satisfaction. But the opinion is held by competent judges
that a machine that would more completely combine the qualities of the
thresher and the huller would be still more satisfactory. It is easily
possible to have the crop too dry to thresh in the best condition, and
care should be taken to regulate the feed in threshing so that the
alfalfa will not enter the cylinder in bunches. More than 200 bushels of
seed have been threshed in a day from crops which yielded abundantly.
The seed should be carefully winnowed before putting it on the market.
The seed crops, as would naturally be expected, vary much; crops are
harvested which run all the way from 1 to 20 bushels per acre. From
irrigated lands the yields are, of course, much more uniform than from
unirrigated lands, since in the former the supply of moisture may be
controlled. Fair to good average yields on these may be stated at from 4
to 6 bushels, good yields at from 6 to 8 bushels per acre, and specially
good yields at from 10 to 12 bushels. The bushel weighs 60 pounds.
Growing alfalfa seed under irrigation has frequently proved very
profitable. The seed grown in such areas is larger and more attractive
to the eye than that ordinarily grown in the absence of irrigation, and
because of this many are lured into sowing it on unirrigated land when
the former would better serve their purpose. The seed is frequently
adulterated with that of yellow clover (_Medicago lupulina_), which
resembles it closely, but this is more likely to be true of imported
than of American grown seed.

=Renewing.=--Alfalfa may be renewed and also renovated where the stand
secured at the first has been insufficient, where it may have been
injured from various causes, where it is being crowded with weeds, and
even with useful grasses, and where the land requires enriching.

The stand of alfalfa secured is sometimes thin and uneven. This may
arise from such causes as sowing too little seed; whether over-dry or
through the crowding of the young plants. When this happens, in many
situations it is quite practicable to thicken the stand by disking the
ground more or less, adding fresh seed, according to the need of the
crop, and then covering the seed thus added with the harrow. Such
renovation would be comparatively easy on clean land, were it not for
fact that the alfalfa plants already rooted overshadow the young plants,
always to their injury, and sometimes to their total destruction. The
spring will probably be the best season to attempt such renovation, but
there may be instances where the winters are not severe, in which autumn
seeding will succeed as well or better than spring seeding. Because of
the uncertainty of the results of such renovation, the aim should be so
to prepare the land and sow the seed that a good, thick stand will be
secured at the first.

Should the alfalfa fields be spotted, because in places the nurse crop
lodged and smothered the plants, or because excessive moisture destroyed
them on the lower portions of the field in an abnormally wet season,
the renewing process is simple indeed. It consists in disking those
parts so thoroughly as to destroy all vegetation that may have become
rooted on them, and sowing seed in the usual way without a nurse crop.
But should the low places be such as to hold an excess of water at any
time of the year under normal conditions for days in succession, even
though it should not rise to the surface, the attempts to make alfalfa
grow successfully on these will prove abortive.

When weeds and grasses crowd the crop, the plan of disking the fields to
destroy these is becoming quite common, especially in the West. The work
is usually done in the early spring. In doing it, disk harrows are
driven over the field, usually two ways, the second disking being done
at right angles to the first. The disks are set at that angle which will
do the least injury to the plants, and that will at the same time do the
work effectively. This can only be determined by actual test in each
instance. Some of the crowns of the plants will be split open by the
disk, which some authorities claim is an advantage in that it tends to
an increase in the number of the stems produced, an opinion which is by
no means held in common at the present time, and yet there are
localities where it has certainly proved advantageous. Occasionally, a
plant will be cut off. There can be no doubt, however, that such
disking, when necessary, does tend to clean the land and also to
strengthen growth in the alfalfa crop, on the principle that cultivation
which does not seriously disturb growing plants is always helpful to
them. The frequency of such diskings will depend on the needs of the
crop. Some advocate disking every spring, some every other spring, and
some not at all. That plan which disks the ground only when it is
necessary to keep the weeds at bay would seem to be the most sensible.
This would mean that sometimes, as where crab grass has a firm hold,
disking may be necessary at least for a time every spring. In other
instances it would be necessary only every second or third season, and
in yet other instances not at all. However, some growers in dry areas
advocate disking frequently, as, for instance, after some of the
cuttings of the hay, and with a view to retain moisture. It is at least
questionable, however, if disking so frequently would not soon tend to
thin the plants too much, to say nothing of the labor while the work is
being done.

The idea of stirring the surface soil in alfalfa fields is by no means
new. In England the plan prevailed to some extent years ago of harrowing
the fields in the autumn with heavy harrows until, when the process was
completed, they would take on the appearance of the bare fallow for a
time. In the Eastern States and in some parts of Canada the harrow is
used instead of the disk, but usually the latter will do the work more
effectively and with less cost. Frequently, when the disk has been used
on alfalfa, it may also be advantageous to run a light harrow over the
ground to smoothen the surface.

With a view to renovate the crop and increase the yields, in some
sections, as in the Atlantic States, it has been recommended to
top-dress alfalfa fields with farmyard manure every autumn. This, no
doubt, would prove very effective, but it would also be very expensive,
unless in the neighborhood of large cities. It would be impracticable
without neglecting the needs of the other crops of the farm. In the
mountain areas of the West, it has been found that the cost of
fertilizing with farmyard manure is in the meantime greater than the
increased production in the alfalfa is worth, but it may not be always
thus, even on these rich lands. Some Eastern growers also apply more or
less gypsum. This is generally sown over the fields after the crop has
begun to grow in the spring.

Renovating alfalfa fields is much more easily and effectively done, as
would naturally be expected, in areas where conditions are highly
favorable to its growth than where these are only moderately favorable.
In some of the mountain valleys instances have occurred in which alfalfa
fields have been plowed and sown with oats, with a result, first that a
good crop of oats was reaped, and second, that fairly good crops of
alfalfa were harvested the following season without re-sowing the field.

=Sources of Injury to Alfalfa.=--Chief among the sources of injury to
alfalfa, after the plants have become established, are frost in
saturated ground, ice, floods, grasshoppers, gophers, dodder, and
pasturing by live stock in the late autumn or winter. When it happens
that two or three of these act in conjunction, the injury following is
just so much more rapid and complete. As has been intimated, where
water is excessive, in a climate which in winter or spring is
characterized by alternations of freezing and thawing, the plants will
either have the roots snapped asunder, or they will be gradually raised
out of the ground. This will only happen in soil with a subsoil more
retentive than is compatible with well-doing of the highest order in the
plants. The danger from this source is greatest during the first winter
after sowing the plants, as then the roots are not really established.
The only remedy for such a contingency is the draining of the land.

Some reference has also been made to injury done through ice, where it
collects in low places in land. The destructiveness of the ice depends
on its thickness and its nearness to the ground. When it rests upon the
ground for any considerable time the plants die. If, however, water
intervenes, the plants may live when the submergence is for a limited
time. One instance is on record in Onondaga County in New York State, in
which alfalfa survived submergence for a considerable period under a
thin sheet of water covered by three inches of ice, but when growth came
it was for a time less vigorous than normal.

Floods in warm weather are greatly injurious to alfalfa. The extent of
the injury done increases with increase of depth in the waters of
submergence, increase in stagnation in the waters, and increase in the
duration of the period of overflow. Stagnant water sooner loses its
dissolved nitrogen; hence, the plants cannot breathe normally. The harm
done, therefore, by floods in each case can only be known by waiting to
see the results. These summer floods always harm the crops temporarily,
and in many instances kill them outright. Occasional periods of overflow
should not prevent the sowing of alfalfa on such lands, since on these
it is usually not difficult to start a new crop, but the seed should not
be sown on such lands when overflow occurs at such a season. When it
occurs in cool weather and quickly subsides, it may be possible to grow
paying crops of alfalfa.

In some areas grasshoppers are a real scourge in alfalfa fields. Because
of the shade provided by the ground and the influence which this exerts
in softening it, they are encouraged to deposit their eggs and remain so
as to prove a source of trouble the following year. It has been found
that through disking of the land both ways after sharp frosts have come
is greatly effective in destroying the grasshopper eggs deposited in the
soil. They are thus exposed to the action of the subsequent frosts and
so perish. The disking has also tended to stimulate growth in the crop
the following year. The eggs will not, of course, be all destroyed by
such disking, but so large a percentage will, that the crop should be
practically protected from serious injury, unless when grasshoppers come
from elsewhere.

It would seem correct to say that gophers do more injury to alfalfa
fields in certain areas of the West than comes to them from all other
sources combined. They not only destroy the plants by feeding upon them,
but they fill the soil with mounds, which greatly interfere with the
harvesting of the crops. They are destroyed by giving them poisoned
food, trapping, shooting, and suffocating through the use of bisulphide
of carbon. Poison is frequently administered by soaking grain in
strychnine or dropping it on pieces of potato and putting the same in or
near the burrows. Bisulphide of carbon is put upon a rag or other
substance, which is put into the burrow and the opening closed.

Dodder is a parasitical plant introduced, probably, in seed from Europe,
which feeds upon alfalfa plants, to their destruction. The seeds of
alfalfa sometimes become so impregnated with the seeds of dodder that
the latter will grow where the seed is sown, thus introducing it to new
centers. The dodder starts in the soil and soon throws up its
golden-colored thread-like stems, which reach out and fasten on the
alfalfa plants that grow sufficiently near. The dodder then loses its
hold upon the soil and gets its food entirely from the alfalfa plants,
which it ultimately destroys. But since the seeds of the dodder remain
at least for a time in the soil, and the adjacent soil becomes infected
with them, the circles in which the dodder feeds continually widen. In
certain parts of New York State some fields have become so seriously
affected as to lead to investigations conducted through officials from
the State experiment station. Pending these investigations, the exercise
of great care in the purchase of seed and the immediate plowing of the
infested areas are recommended.

Some reference has already been made to injurious results from
pasturing close in the autumn or winter, except in the most favored
alfalfa regions. In addition to what has been already said, the wisdom
of not grazing alfalfa the first year is here emphasized, and also the
mistake of grazing at any time when the ground is frozen, at least in
areas east of and, generally speaking, adjacent to the Mississippi
River.

=Alfalfa as a Fertilizer.=--Alfalfa is not considered equal to medium
red clover as a direct means of fertilizing and otherwise improving the
land on which it grows. This does not arise from less inherent power on
the part of alfalfa to draw nitrogen from the air and deposit it in the
soil, but rather from the fact that clover establishes itself more
quickly, and is much more frequently grown in the rotation. Several
crops of medium red clover can be grown in short rotations, each one
being a source of much benefit to the crops that follow, while one crop
of alfalfa occupies the land. But when the alfalfa is all fed upon the
farm on which it grew, where the plants grow freely, it then becomes a
source of fertilization without a rival, probably, among plants grown
upon the farm.

The fertility thus furnished does not consist so much in the plant food
deposited in the soil directly as in that furnished in the successive
crops that are grown and fed every year. In Farmers' Bulletin No. 133,
published by the United States Department of Agriculture, it is stated
that the Wyoming Experiment Station found 44 pounds of nitrogen, 8.27
pounds of phosphoric acid, and 50.95 pounds of potash in one ton of
alfalfa. This would mean that in the yield of alfalfa hay from a given
area, estimated at four tons per acre for the season, alfalfa would
furnish 176 pounds of nitrogen, 33.08 pounds of phosphoric acid, and
203.8 pounds of potash. If this alfalfa were fed upon the farm, it would
not only prove a cheap source of protein for feeding, but it would
furnish fertility, as stated above, without seriously diminishing the
supply of the same in the surface soil, since much of the fertilizing
material produced would come from the air and subsoil. The manure thus
made, if carefully saved and applied, would thus add materially to the
fertility of the land. If, however, the alfalfa were sold, the mineral
matter drawn from the cultivable area of the soil and from the subsoil
lying under it would be reduced to the extent of the draft made upon
these in growing the alfalfa.

The direct influence of alfalfa upon the fertility of the land on which
it grows is shown in the greatly increased production in the crops which
follow alfalfa. This increase is not only marked, but it is frequently
discernible for several successive years. But as has been intimated, the
benefit that would otherwise accrue from growing alfalfa as a direct
means of fertilizing the land is much circumscribed by the long term of
years for which it is usually grown.

The mechanical effects of alfalfa upon the land are beneficent. It
improves the tilth by means of the shade furnished, and the extent to
which the roots fill the soil. These in their decay further influence
favorably that friability which is so desirable in soils that are
cultivated, and as previously stated, the long, deep roots in their
decay exercise a salutary influence on drainage.

The work of breaking alfalfa fields is frequently laborious, owing to
the number and size of the roots. If, however, a plow is used, the share
of which has a serrated edge, the roots will be cut or broken off more
easily and more effectively.




CHAPTER V

ALSIKE CLOVER


Alsike Clover (_Trifolium hybridum_) takes its name from a parish in the
south of Sweden. From there it is probable that it was introduced into
England. Linnaeus gave it the name of _hybridum_, imagining it to be a
cross between the red and the white varieties. Botanists do not
generally hold this view. It is known by various names, as Swedish,
White Swedish, Alsace, Hybrid, Perennial Hybrid, Elegant and Pod Clover,
but more commonly in America it is spoken of as alsike.

The plants of this variety are more slender than those of the medium red
variety, although they grow in some instances to a greater height. The
slender stems are much branched. The leaves are numerous and oblong in
shape, the flowers are of a pinkish tint, the heads are globular and are
about three-fourths of an inch in diameter, and the pods, like those in
white clover, contain more than one seed. The roots are in no small
degree fibrous, and yet the slender tap root goes down to a considerable
distance.

Alsike clover is a perennial. In favorable situations it will live for
many years. Ordinarily, it grows to the height of 18 to 24 inches, but
in slough lands it sometimes grows to the height of 5 feet. The plants
do not reach their full size until the second year, and in some
instances until a period even later. They grow less rapidly than those
of medium red clover, are several weeks later coming into flower, and
grow much less vigorously in the autumn. Ordinarily, they furnish but
one cutting of hay each year. Because of the more fibrous character of
the root growth, the plants do not heave so readily as those of red
clover. In moist situations they are much given to lodge; hence, the
importance of growing this crop, when grown for hay, along with some
kind of grass that will help to keep the stems erect.

[Illustration: Fig. 5. Alsike Clover (_Trifolium hybridum_)
Oregon Experiment Station]

Alsike clover furnishes a large amount of pasture. It is relished, at
least, fairly well. The leaves are slightly bitter, but not enough to
seriously interfere with their palatability. The quality of the hay is
excellent. This arises from its fineness, from the number of the small
branches and leaves on the stems, and from its fragrance when well
cured. While it makes a very suitable hay for horses and cattle, it has
peculiar adaptation for sheep, owing to its fineness.

As a fertilizer it is probably not equal to medium red clover, since the
root growth is not so bulky. Nor does it produce a second cutting
anything like so vigorous as the former. Nevertheless, the roots possess
even stiff soils to such an extent that they not only furnish them with
much plant food, but they also tend to disintegrate them and to render
them more easy to pulverize.

As a honey plant, alsike clover is without a rival among clovers, unless
it be in the small white variety. It is a great favorite with
bee-keepers. Many of them sow it to enable them to furnish pastures for
their bees. The bloom remains for a relatively long period. The honey is
also accessible to the common honey bee, since the branches are numerous
on the stems, and since each branch bears a head, the flower heads are
relatively quite numerous. Since the honey is accessible to the common
bee, pollination in the plants is assured; hence, the failures in the
seed crop are few, and when other conditions are favorable, seed
production is abundant. Because of the many good qualities of this
clover it is deservedly a favorite wherever it can be successfully
grown. When in full bloom, a field of alsike clover is a very beautiful
sight. The flowers are a pale white at first, but gradually they deepen
into a beautiful pink of tinted shades, and their fragrance is fully
equal to their beauty.

=Distribution.=--Alsike clover is found in Europe, Northern Africa and
Western Asia. In these it has been cultivated for a long time, but its
favorite home in the Old World would seem to be in Northern Europe. It
would doubtless be correct to say that it is indigenous to Europe, and
probably that it is indigenous to each of the three continents named. It
is not indigenous to America, but was introduced into the same probably
from Great Britain or Scandinavia. In some parts of North America it
grows with a luxuriance equal to, if not, indeed, greater, than that
shown by this plant when grown under the most favorable conditions
which Europe furnishes.

This plant is better adapted to a cool and humid climate than to one hot
and dry. It is even more hardy than medium red clover, in the sense of
enduring cold, and will live under conditions of climate so austere as
to be fatal to red clover. It may, therefore, be grown further north
than medium red clover, and under conditions so exposed as to cause
medium red clover to fail. But it does not succeed quite so well as the
former toward the southerly limit of the successful production of medium
red clover; hence, the limit of production in the semi-arid belt ceases
sooner than in the case of the other variety. The best climatic
conditions for growing it are found not far from the boundary line
between the United States and Canada, and in the vicinity of the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the Great Lakes.

In the United States the best crops are grown in the States which border
on Canada, and in these the highest adaptation, climate and soil
considered, is found in Michigan, Wisconsin and Northeastern Minnesota.
But in New York the adaptation is also high, and also in certain parts
of Montana, Idaho and Washington. Good crops may also be grown in nearly
all the second tier of States that lie southward from the Canadian
boundary. The exceptions are those embraced in the semi-arid belt.
Further south than the second tier of States to which reference has just
been made, the successful growth of alsike generally lessens, and yet in
parts of these States, as, for instance, Kentucky, Tennessee and
Missouri, good crops are grown. Some of the Rocky Mountain valleys, more
especially those that can be irrigated, and that are also sufficiently
elevated, grow excellent crops of alsike. Much of the province of
Ontario has very high adaptation to the growth of alsike clover, and in
several counties of that province large quantities are grown, not only
for hay, but also for seed. In Ontario County in the said province, are
certain clay soils rich in lime; in fact, almost marley in character,
which have been found especially well adapted to growing alsike clover
seed, and in certain areas in proximity to the Georgian Bay, adaptation
exists about equally high. In some parts of Quebec good crops are also
grown. But this variety of clover has not been grown as yet with much
success in Manitoba, Assiniboia, Alberta or Saskatchewan. Both soil and
climate, however, in these provinces should not be uncongenial to it in
the main. In the cultivable lands of British Columbia, as in those of
Washington, it grows remarkably well. Especially in the river bottoms
and on the tide lands can immense crops be grown, as also on the tide
lands of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but not on the upland sandy
soils of these provinces.

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