106 



INTRODl CTION. 



The iiKKSt urgent need of southern agritnltuie is the en- 

 richment of the .soil. To improve southern soils the princi- 

 pal additions needed are (1) vegetable matter and (2) 

 nitrogen. Crimson clover adds both vegetable matter and 

 nitrogen to the soil on which it grows. In fact, this method 

 of improving the soil by the growing of crimson clover 

 seems to be the most generally practicable method that can 

 be put into immediate effect by southern farmers. This is 

 partly because crimson clover is suited to a wide range of 

 soils, because usually the seed are cheap, and because the 

 seed can be sown in September among the gi-owing cotton 

 plants without special preparation of the soil. 



During each of the last fourteen years numei-ous experi- 

 ments have been made at Auburn, both on gray sandy soil 

 (Norfolk sandy loam) and on reddish loam (Cecil series). In 

 addition to these accurately conducted experiments, tests 

 have been made by farmers throughout the State under the 

 dir-ectioii otf the writer. Many of these local tests, especially 

 during the past few years, have been made in co-operation 

 with the Bureau of Plant Industrv of the U. S. Department 

 of AgiM culture. Tlie conclusions here presented are based 

 oliiefly on experiments at Auburn and on local tests in 

 Alabama, full data for which would be too voluminous for 

 recording in this bulletin- 



WHAT CRIMSON CLOVER IS. 



Crimson clover is also known as scarlet clover, and it?« 

 botanical name is TrifoJinm hicaniatuni. Tt is an annual 

 plant, making its growth between 'Se])teinber and May. The 

 seed must be sown each year, for while this plant seeds 

 freely here, yet these seed on dro])ping to the ground in 

 May and June, germinate promptly, and the young plants 

 are killed by the heat of summer. Crimson clover produces 

 abundant crops of seed and farmers can save their owd 

 «eed. To do this the seed must be flailed or threshed from 

 the- plants, and the seed still in the chaff sown without re^ 



