274 EXPERIMENTAL FARMS 



2 GEORGE V., A. 1912 

 HOP CLOVER AND OTHER COMMON WILD LEGUMES. 



Among the plants frequently regarded as weeds, but which are of slight import- 

 ance either as weeds or for any value which they possess, are several of the wild 

 members of the clover family. Hop clover and yellow trefoil especially attract a great 

 deal of notice, but can hardly be classed as noxious weeds. When present in a hay 

 crop they may reduce the value of the hay by becoming over-ripe and woody, and may 

 affect the yield, to the extent that they occupy the space of larger hay plants; and 

 in clover left for seed, the free-seeding trefoil is also objectionable; but their eradica- 

 tion is not difficult, and they do not show much tendency to over-run regularly farmed 

 land. In pastures they may even contribute enough to the herbage to be of value 

 rather than objectionable. Being rich in nitrogen, and sharing the ability of all 

 legumes to leave the soil richer in nitrogen than they found it, both these plants and 

 also such other legumes as low hop clover, white and yellow sweet-clover, and the 

 vetches may well be encouraged to occupy the ground in untillable places. The hop 

 clovers and the sweet clovers thrive on sandy tracts where grasses are usually insuffi- 

 cient to cover the ground. 



When land is to be cleaned of any of these plants, it may be used for a cultivated 

 crop for a year, and if care is taken to prevent seeding they will not persist long as 

 a rule. The vetches may require more attention, by moans of a short rotation of 

 crops, after-harvest cultivation, or sometimes seeding down to grass for three or four 

 years, if a rotation is out of the question. 



