284 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



the land, is because it is more satisfactory to mow oats for hay than 

 weeds to prevent their strangling the clover. 



Another reason why we object to sowing any kind of clover with rank 

 growing spring grain is because when grown as a grain crop these are 

 removed about the 15th to the 20th of July in the latitude of central Iowa, 

 and the full blaze of the hot sun is allowed to fall on the delicate, sickly 

 c!over plants that have been struggling for an existence. This is just like 

 taking a boy out of the sick room and making him do a full day's work 

 in the harvest field. This explains why so many stands of clover appar- 

 ently good up to that time perish. It does not, however, explain it fully. 

 These crops have been making very heavy drafts on the soil moisture. It 

 requires 500 pounds of water to make a pound of dry oats; wheat and bar- 

 ley about 400. Our readers can readily see why when the supply of mois- 

 ture is short, the clover is robbed,, consequently has little root develop- 

 ment, and no wonder it dies when the nurse crop is removed, unless the 

 ground is full of moisture. This explains why heavy rains during harvest 

 save a prime stand of clover which would otherwise perish. 



If our readers who are planning to have a stand of clover next year 

 will read this over two or three times till they fully understand it and then 

 put it in practice, we will not have half the complaints we have had in 

 years past of failures in the stand of clover from various causes. Bear in 

 mind that clover that has germinating power will germinate if given the 

 conditions of germination; that the main thing required in the spring is 

 moisture, and that it must be put down in the soil deep enough to get the 

 moisture, but not so deep as to exclude the air. Bear in mind further, that 

 the seeds absorb the moisture from the particles of soil around them. 

 Hence they must be in close contact with that soil, which can only take 

 place when a good seed bed has been prepared. That is, when the soil is 

 finely pulverized, so that the clover seed can get right up next to the par- 

 ticles of soil and get the moisture that it needs. A thoroughly prepared 

 seed bed is one of the first requisites, therefore, in securing a stand of 

 clover. Where you can get your seed bed so thoroughly prepared that 

 every grain will grow, you don't need more than five pounds of clover seed 

 to the acre. We usaully recommend eight pounds, because we are talking 

 to men, many of whom don't prepare their seed bed; some because the 

 circumstances are such that they can't do it, others because they don't 

 try to do it. In these cases you must sow pretty nearly twice as much 

 soed as you expect to grow. 



