EXPERIMENTS IN THE GROWTH OF CLOVER ON FARMS 

 WHERE IT ONCE GREW BUT NOW FAILS. 



During the work on the Tompkins county agricultural survey in 

 igo6, Mr. White and Mr. Shepard reported great difficulty in securing 

 clover on farms where good crops of it were formerly grown. Similar 

 conditions exist on many of the less fertile farms of the State. In many 

 cases, the sections that once grew clover seed now fail to grow clover. 

 In the spring of 1907, two such fields of two acres each were rented for 

 the College and experiments were begun. A similar set of experiments 

 were conducted at Cherry Creek in Chautauqua county, and pot experi- 

 ments were conducted in the greenhouses. Additional work is now 

 under way. 



It seems best to publish such results as have thus far been secured 

 ill order to answer the numerous inquiries on this subject that come 

 from farmers. 



POSSIBLE REASONS FOR FAILURE 



Some of the conditions that might cause clover to fail are as follows: 



1. Lack of the nodule-forming bacteria. 



2. Diseases. 



3. Insect enemies. 



4. Poor seed or wrong kind of seed. 



5. Winter-killing — due to unfavorable physical condition of the soil. 



6. Type of farming — lack of one or more elements of plant-food in 

 the soil. 



7. Lack of lime. 



(i) Lack of nodule-forming bacteria. — Whether or not the soil is in 

 need of inoculation can be learned by pulling up some old plants, which 

 are nearly always to be found in the fields, and looking for the small 

 nodules or knots on the roots. If these are present, there is no need of 

 inoculation. If they are not present, it would be well to sow a small 

 quantity of soil from some good clover field over the land near the time 

 of seeding. 



In the numerous fields that have been under observation in this State, 

 the failure has never been due to the absence of the nodule-forming 

 bacteria. In all the failures noted the few plants that were left were 



