Book: Clovers and How to Grow Them

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




The seed may be sown by hand, by the aid of hand machines, by some makes
of grain drills in the same way as grain is sown, and by others with a
grass-seeder attachment. When sown by the latter, the seed should
usually be allowed to fall before the grain tubes to aid in securing a
covering for it; the covering thus provided should be supplemented by
additional harrowing and in some instances rolling. When sown by hand or
by hand machines on soils East and South, the roller should in many
instances follow and then the harrow, but on cloddy surfaces the harrow
should be used first and then the roller. No method of sowing the seed
is more satisfactory than that which sows it by grain drills, which can
deposit it in the soil as grain is sown, as it is then buried at an even
depth. Sowing to a medium depth, say, 1/2 to 1-1/2 inches, is preferable
to either extreme.

Whether it is advisable to sow a nurse crop will depend upon conditions.
When the seed is sown early, in hot weather the young plants are helped
by more or less of shade. Such shade is usually provided by the other
factor or factors of the mixture. But when shade only is wanted from the
nurse crop, a thin seeding of buckwheat has been found to answer. Melons
and tomatoes have in some instances furnished shade satisfactorily, and
in others upright growing varieties of cow peas or soy beans. The less
complete the preparation of the seed-bed, the greater also is the
necessity for shade. In orchards the shade of the trees is usually
ample, and in some instances excessive. The same is true of vigorous
corn and cotton crops.

Whether this clover should be sown alone or in mixtures will also depend
upon conditions. If the crop is wanted solely for the enrichment of the
land, it will usually be better to sow it alone, as crops other than
legumes do not bring as much fertility to the land. As a rule,
therefore, it should be sown alone in orchards. It should also, usually,
be sown alone for soiling crops and for hay, but in some instances for
both uses it may be sown with such crops as winter oats or winter
vetches. On some soils, however, these will too much crowd the clover
plants. On others the reverse will be true. For seed the crop should, of
course, always be sown alone.

For pasture, crimson clover is sometimes sown with rape, winter rye,
winter oats, the common vetch or the sand vetch. When sown with rape,
the date of the sowing should be early. With the other crops named the
most suitable date for sowing the clover will usually prove the most
suitable also for sowing these.

When sown alone, from 10 to 20 pounds of seed are used per acre. With
all the conditions favorable, 12 to 15 pounds should suffice. When sown
with rape for pasture, 3 pounds of rape and 10 of the clover, or even a
less quantity, should be enough. When sown with winter rye or winter
oats, about 1 bushel of each and 10 pounds of clover should suffice, and
when sown with the common or the sand vetch, 1/2 bushel of either and 10
pounds of the clover should be enough. When sown in the chaff, from 2 to
3 bushels ought to suffice, but the amount required will be much
affected by the character of the seed crop.

=Pasturing.=--Crimson clover may be pastured in the autumn or in the
spring or at both seasons, either when sown alone, or in conjunction
with some other pasture crops, as winter rye, oats, barley or vetches.
But it is not probable that it will ever become so popular as some other
pasture plants that grow during the same seasons of the year; since,
first, when it is grown, it is usually wanted for green manure; second,
it does not under some conditions grow satisfactorily with other crops;
and third, when grazed down in the autumn the covering thus removed
renders the plants much more liable to perish in the winter. When,
however, it is sown early in the season, as in July, along with Dwarf
Essex rape, or even alone, much grazing may be furnished, even though
the clover should not survive the winter.

It may be grazed by horses, mules, cattle, sheep or swine, but when
grazed with cattle and sheep, it is probable that some danger from hoven
or bloat will be present, as when grazing other kinds of clover. (See
page 94.) This danger, however, will be lessened, if not entirely
removed, when nurse crops are grown with the clover, except in the case
of rape. The grazing should not begin when the plants are small, lest
the growth should be too much hindered at a season when growth is
critical.

=Harvesting for Hay.=--Crimson clover is ready to be cut for hay when
coming into, and a little before it is in, fullest bloom. Some
authorities claim that it should be harvested when the blooms begin to
appear. It should certainly not be allowed to pass the stage of full
bloom, lest the hay when cured should prove hurtful to horses and
possibly to other live stock, because of the presence of hair balls,
which are then liable to form from the hairs so numerously found on this
plant. These balls produce death by forming an impermeable wedge in the
intestines of horses, thereby impeding and in some instances totally
arresting the process of digestion. These balls, almost circular in
form, are composed of minute and rather stiff hairs, and several have
been found in one animal. These hairs, numerous on the heads; do not
stiffen sooner than the period of full bloom; hence, until that stage is
reached in the growth of the plants, the danger from feeding cured hay
made from them does not occur.

In New Jersey and the neighboring States, crimson clover is ready for
being cut sometimes in May earlier or later, as the season is early or
late. Further South it is fit to harvest earlier. At that season it is
not easily cured, since then rains are more frequent than in the
ordinary harvest season and the weather is less drying. Consequently,
hay caps may frequently be used with much advantage by the growers of
this hay. (See page 98.)

It is harvested as other clover; that is, it is cut with the field
mower, raked when wilted, put up into cocks, and left to stand in these
until it has gone through the sweating process, when the cocks are
opened out again on a bright day for a few hours prior to drawing them.
The tedder should be used freely in getting the hay ready to rake, as at
that season of the year it dries slowly.

=Securing Seed.=--Crimson clover does not ripen quite so quickly after
flowering as common red clover, owing, in part, at least, to the less
intense character of the heat and drying influences at the season when
it matures. Nevertheless, when it is ripe, unless it is cut with much
promptness, the seed will shed much from the heads, and the heads will
break off much during the curing process. If cut even two or three days
too soon, the seeds will not be large and plump. Moreover, showery or
muggy weather will soon greatly injure the crop. One or two days of such
weather after the crop has been cut will stain the seed; two or three
days of the same will cause much of the seed to sprout, and three or
four days will practically ruin the crop.

Because of the ease with which the seed sheds off the heads, it is
better to cut the seed crop while it is a little damp, or at least to
refrain from cutting during the greatest heat of the day. In some
instances it is cut with the mower and raked early or late in the day,
put up in small cocks and threshed from these in four or five days after
being cut. But this method of harvesting, however carefully done, is
attended with much loss of seed. It is better to harvest with the
self-rake reaper, the rakes being so adjusted that the hay will be
dropped off in small gavels or sheaves, so small that in two or three
days they may be lifted without being turned over; Much care should be
exercised in lifting the sheaves to avoid shedding in the seed, and it
should be drawn on wagons with tight racks.

While it is not absolutely necessary to thresh the seed crop at once,
the work can usually be done at that time with less outlay and with less
loss of seed. It is threshed with a huller or with a grain separator
with suitable attachments. Some attention must be given to the
arrangement of the teeth used in the machine, lest many of the seeds,
which are large; should be split; and as it is not easy to separate the
seeds from the haulms, specially made riddles and sieves must needs be
used.

The seed crop is usually harvested in June north of the Ohio and Potomac
rivers, and southward from these in the month of May. The yield of seed
runs all the way from 10 bushels per acre downwards. The average crop is
4 to 5 bushels.

=Renewing.=--Since crimson clover is an annual, but little can be done
in the sense of renewing it on the same land without breaking the
ground. 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.

=Facts Regarding Crimson Clover.=--1. 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.

2. Prominent among the causes of failure where crimson clover does not
succeed are: (_a_) The seed fails to germinate because of the want of
moisture, or having germinated the young plants are killed by heat or
drought; (_b_) they perish in the winter from exposure to cold winds or
frosts, or by alternate freezing and thawing in the soil; or (_c_) the
land is too low in fertility to produce a sufficiently vigorous growth
in the plants.

3. The mechanical effects upon the soil from growing crimson clover on
it are very marked, especially when it inclines to stiffness, owing to
the strong development of the root growth.

4. When crimson clover has been sown in the spring, a reasonably good
growth is usually obtained before midsummer, even as far north as the
Canadian boundary line, but since hot weather checks further growth and
frequently causes wilting in the plants, this variety is not equal to
some of the other varieties of clover for being sown at that season.

5. In the Southern States, crimson clover has been found to render
considerable service by aiding in preventing land from washing in the
winter season.

6. When plowed under in orchards, the work should be done at an early
rather than a late stage in the growth of the plants, lest it should rob
the trees of their rightful share of the moisture. Because of this, in
some instances, if not in all, the plants should be buried before the
season of full bloom and sometimes before the blooms begin to open.

7. The seed is more certain to germinate while yet enclosed in the chaff
scales, and because of this, where home-grown seed is used, it may be
worth while to secure it in this form by flailing out the seed or
treading it out with horses.




CHAPTER VIII

WHITE CLOVER


White Clover (_Trifolium repens_) is also called Dutch, White Dutch,
White Trefoil, Creeping Trifolium and Honeysuckle clover. The name Dutch
clover has doubtless been applied to it because of the extent to which
it is in evidence in the pastures and meadows of Holland; the name
Creeping Trifolium, because of the creeping character of the stems,
which, under favorable conditions, send roots down into the soil; and
Honeysuckle clover, because of the honey supplies which it furnishes for
bees. It is one of the plants known as Shamrock, the national emblem of
Ireland.

White clover is perennial, the stems of which creep along the ground
and, as above intimated, root at the joints; so that from this source
plants are indefinitely multiplied. They also come from the seed. The
leaves are small and very numerous, and with the exception of the flower
stems and flowers, furnish all the forage obtained. The flowers are very
numerous, especially when showery weather precedes and accompanies the
flowering season. They are large for the size of the plant, are
supported by a leafless stem of considerable length, and are white or
tinted with a delicate rose color. The roots are numerous and fibrous.
They cannot go down into the soil so deeply as the larger clovers;
hence, the dwarfing effect of dry seasons upon the growth.

[Illustration: Fig. 7. White Clover (_Trifolium repens_)
Oregon Experiment Station]

This plant is exceedingly hardy. It comes out from under the snow with a
green tint, and the leaves are not easily injured by the frosts of
autumn. The growth is not rapid until the general late rains of spring
fall freely. It then pushes on rapidly, and, sending up innumerable
flower stems, turns the pastures in which it abounds into immense flower
gardens in the months of May and June, according to the latitude of the
locality. 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.

The power of this useful plant to travel and possess the land is only
equalled by that of blue grass. When timber lands are cleared, white
clover plants soon appear, and in a few years will spread over the whole
surface of the land. But the amount of grazing furnished by it varies
greatly with the character of the season. Some seasons its bloom is
scarcely in evidence; other seasons it overspreads the pastures.

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.
Its rootlets, however, have a beneficent influence on the texture of
soils, because of their number, and because of the power of the stems to
produce fresh plants, which occupy the soil when other plants die. The
latter furnish a continued source of food to other grasses, which grow
along with white clover in permanent pastures.

Along with blue grass, white clover plants aid in choking out weeds.
This result follows largely as the outcome of the close sod formed by
the two. But in some soils, plants of large growth and bushes and young
trees will not thus be crowded out.

=Distribution.=--White clover is certainly indigenous to Europe and to
the Northern States, and probably Western Asia. It grows in every
country in Europe, but with greatest luxuriance in those countries which
border on the North Sea, the climates of which are very humid, and more
especially in the Netherlands and Great Britain. It stands in high
favor in Holland, but is not regarded so highly in England, owing,
probably, to the great variety of grasses grown there in permanent
pastures. It is generally thought that it was not indigenous to the
Southern States, but has reached these from those farther north. It
would seem to be capable of growing in all countries well adapted to the
keeping of cattle; hence, it follows in the wake of successful
live-stock husbandry.

White clover seems able to adapt itself to a great variety of climatic
conditions. 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.

It would probably be correct to say that this plant is found in every
State in the Union, and that it succeeds well in nearly all the Northern
States, from sea to sea. Although it grows well in certain parts of the
Southern States, especially in those that lie northward, the general
adaptation in these is not so high as in those further north. The
highest adaptation in the United States is probably found in the Puget
Sound region and in the hardwood timber producing areas of the States
which lie south from the Great Lakes and in proximity to them, as
Northeastern Minnesota, Northern Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and New York.
But the adaptation is also high in the more elevated of the mountain
valleys of the Northwestern States when irrigated waters may be led on
to these lands. The areas lowest in adaptation are those that lie within
the semi-arid belt. The low-lying lands of the South, where hot weather
is prolonged in summer, are likewise low in their adaptation, but not so
low as the former. The prairie areas of the Northern Mississippi basin
have an adaptation for growing white clover that may be termed
intermediate, but where hardwood forests grow naturally on these the
adaptation is high. In New England the climatic conditions are very
favorable, much more so than the soil conditions.

In Canada, conditions are found highly favorable to the growth of this
plant in the country lying eastward from Lake Huron, north of Lakes Erie
and Ontario and also on both sides of the St. Lawrence River. Adaptation
is also high along the Pacific and in the mountain valleys not distant
from the Pacific. In all the areas of Canada, which once produced
forests, this plant will grow well. But north from Lakes Huron and
Superior, the soil conditions are against it, because of their rocky
character. Certain forest areas west from Lake Superior, and also in
other parts, the sandy soils of which sustain a growth of Jack Pine
(_Pinus murrayana_) trees, do not grow white clover with much vigor.
The prairie areas of Canada, westward from Lake Superior to the
mountains, do not grow white clover with much success, and the
adaptation for its growth would seem to lessen gradually until the Rocky
Mountains are approached.

=Soils.=--Small white clover will grow on almost any kind of soil, but
by no means equally well. Highest, probably, in adaptation, especially
when climatic conditions are considered along with those of soil, are
the clay loams west of the Cascade Mountains and northward from
California to Alaska. During the moist months of early summer, this
plant turns the pastures in these areas into a flower garden. Almost
equally high in adaptation are the volcanic ash soils of the Rocky
Mountain valleys. When amply supplied with water, the finest crops of
white clover can be grown even superior to those grown on the lands
described above. Almost the same may be said of what are termed the
hardwood timber soils, which are usually made up of clay loam lying upon
clay. Such areas abound in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ontario and
some States further south. In these soils it grows with much luxuriance,
more especially when lime and potash are abundant. Similar luxuriance
may be looked for in the deposit soils of river basins in which the clay
element predominates, but not in those that are largely made up of sand.
It will also grow well on the stiffest clays, whether white or red, when
moisture is present. On prairie soils, the success attending it is
dependent largely on their texture, composition and the moisture which
they contain under normal conditions. The more firm these soils are,
the better will the clover grow in them, and _vice versa_. This is
equivalent to saying that the more clay they contain, the better will
the white clover grow in them.

Where the humus soils of the prairies are deep and are underlaid with
clay, white clover will grow much better in the subsoil, if laid bare,
than in the surface soil. Prairie soils which lift with the wind are ill
adapted to the growth of this plant, whatsoever may be their
composition. Much of the soil in the semi-arid belt would grow this
plant in fine form, but want of moisture, where irrigation is absent
makes its growth prohibitory in a large portion of this area. On
ordinary slough soils, this clover finds a congenial home, but it will
not grow quite so well, relatively, in these as alsike clover. On sandy
soils, such as those on which Jack pine and Norway pine (_Pinus
resinosa_) grow, this plant will maintain itself, and in wet seasons
will make considerable showing on these; but in very dry seasons the
plants will die, the growth the following season coming from seeds
already in the soil. In the soils of the extreme South, the inability of
white clover to make a good showing is probably more the result of
summer heat than of want of power in the plants to gather food. In those
of the Southwest, want of moisture and excessive heat render its growth,
in a sense, prohibitory.

=Place in the Rotation.=--Since white clover is usually not sown for
meadow, but is rather sown for pasture, it can scarcely be called a
rotation plant in the strict sense of the term; and yet, because of the
extent to which it grows when it has once obtained a footing in soils,
it is more or less frequent in all rotations in which grass or clover is
one of the factors. As it usually comes into the grass pastures, when
these have become established, it will occupy about the same place as
blue grass in rotations; that is to say, whatever would be proper to sow
after the blue grass would be proper to sow after this plant; since the
two usually unite in making the same sod. It will, therefore, be in
order to follow this plant with corn to feed upon the nitrogen furnished
by the clover. The same will be true of any small cereal that has
special adaptation for being grown on overturned sod, as for instance,
flax or oats, or of any crop that revels in the decay of vegetable
matter, more especially in the early stages of such decay, as, for
instance, potatoes and rape. When white clover is sown on land that is
cultivated, though only sown as a factor in a pasture crop, as with all
other clovers it may best be sown on land that is clean; that is, on
land on which the preceding crop has been cultivated to the extent of
securing a clean surface on the same. If, however, this crop must needs
be sown on land that has not been thus cleaned, its great inherent
hardihood will enable it to establish itself where some clovers and
grasses would fail.

It is common to sow white clover on land from which the forest has
recently been removed, also on natural prairie, where it has not
previously grown. In these instances it simply follows the crop of
forest in the one case and of native prairie in the other. But it will
not take possession of the land in either case to the exclusion of other
grasses.

=Preparing the Soil.=--The preparation of the soil for growing this
plant is much the same as for growing other plants of the clover or
grass family. Fineness, firmness, cleanness and moistness are the chief
essentials to be looked for in making the seed-bed. For the same reason
that it has much power to grow among weeds for so small a plant, it has
also much power to grow on surfaces not in the best condition of
preparation for receiving so small a seed. But when sown to provide a
seed crop, it is specially necessary to make the land thoroughly clean
before sowing the seed. This is necessary for the reason, first, that
small white clover, because of its tardiness in growing in the spring,
and because of its comparatively small growth has not much power to
crowd weeds; and second, because of the labor involved in preventing
weed seeds from maturing in a crop that ripens its seeds somewhat late
in the season. While it is advantageous to burn off the grass from a
natural meadow where white clover, is to be sown, it is not so
essential, nevertheless, as when preparing such land for being sown with
some other varieties of grass or clover. The young plants will endure
under conditions which would cause those of many other varieties to
fail.

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