SEEDING TO FODDER AND PASTURE PLANTS. 19 
SEEDING TO FODDER AND PASTURE PLANTS. 
The preparation of the soil prior to seeding with grasses and 
clovers is usually intended primarily for the benefit of the nurse 
crop. To get a good catch, it is important that the surface soil be 
of fine tilth, friable, well-drained and contain a liberal supply of 
decaying vegetable matter. The tender seedling plants require 
plenty of moisture, though they are injured by an excess. If the 
soil lacks humus and a hard crust is formed over its surface, growth 
will be stunted and the young plants will suffer from even a few hot, 
dry days. 
Seeding to grasses and clovers should follow a cleaning crop 
that has had deep and thorough cultivation. The suppression of 
perennial weeds should precede the making of a meadow. Such a 
location as a clayey hillside, where the soil is apt to become hard 
after heavy rains, may be greatly improved by a light top-dressing 
of rotted stable manure, which should be incorporated with the 
surface soil by harrowing. On low, wet lands the best possible 
surface drainage should be provided, even for grasses that like 
abundant moisture. On the dryer prairie soils the subsoil should 
be packed to keep the moisture near the surface until the seedlings 
have grown robust. 
Nurse crops are designed, in part at least, for the protection 
of seedling plants of grasses and clovers. When all the soil moisture 
does not have to be saved for the meadow, a light nurse crop screens 
the seedlings from the burning heat of the sun; it helps to suppress 
weeds until the grasses have sufficient vigour to compete with them; 
and it may give a return from the land while the meadow is devel- 
oping. Wheat or barley is generally considered most satisfactory 
as a nurse crop. Oats, even with thin seeding, are later to mature 
and apt to make too much shade. Standing in a nurse crop, one 
should be able at any time during the growing season to see the 
young grass ten or twelve feet away. The nurse crop should be 
ready to harvest as soon as the grasses commence to tiller or stool out 
and the clovers or other legumes to develop new shoots or branches 
from the crown. 
In districts where the rainfall is less than thirty inches, or not 
well distributed throughout the growing season, the nurse crop may 
rob the young fodder plants of necessary moisture. In some seasons 
a good stand of Red Clover is difficult to obtain, partly because of 
the lack of humus in the soil, but also because the nurse crop, fre- 
quently oats, robs the young plants of the available moisture. If 
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