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to such a degree as to scald the roots and destroy the clover. Usually it 

 is best after clover has attained its full bloom, either to cut it for hay or 

 pasture it until about the first of July, when the stock is removed, or 

 the clover hay cured and taken off. If there is rain enough, a second 

 crop will spring up from the roots at once. This second crop is the most 

 valuable for seed, the seed maturing about the last of August and sooner, 

 if there be copious rains. To make the most abundant yield of clover for 

 grazing, it should be allowed to grow all it will, but never let it make 

 seed, always grazing it down when in full bloom. When grazed down, 

 take ofT the stock until it blooms again. Several successive crops may 

 thus be made during the summer. The crop of August is unfit for horses 

 or mules, the seed having the effect of salivating them to such a degree 

 as to cause them to lose flesh. 



Clover has no superior as a grazing plant. When in full vigor and 

 bloom it will carry more cattle and sheep per acre than blue grass, herd's 

 grass or orchard grass. After it has been grazed to the earth, a few 

 showery days with warm suns will cause it to spring up into renewed 

 vitality, ready again to furnish its succulent herbage to domestic animals. 

 Though very nutritious and highly relished by cattle, it often produces a 

 dangerous swelling called hoven, from which many cows die. When 

 first turned upon clover, cattle should only be allowed to graze for an 

 hour or two, and then be driven oflf for the remainder of the day, grad- 

 ually increasing the time of grazing, until they become less voracious in 

 their appetites, never permitting them to run upon clover when wet. 

 Clover made wet by a rain at midday is more likely to produce hoven 

 than when wet by dew. If taken in the stomach of cattle when wet by 

 rain at midday, and after the stalks and leaves are heated by the sun, fer- 

 mentation in the stomach will occur much sooner than when the herbage 

 is cool, though wet with the morning dew. Cattle are more easily af- 

 fected by clover than horses, because, being ruminants, they take in the 

 clover rapidly, filling the stomach at once, without chewing. Diges- 

 tion is for the time checked and a rapid fermentation sets in. 



Stock should never be turned upon clover until it blooms. The prac- 

 tice of many farmers, to turn all the stock upon a clover field early in 

 April, is very destructive. The crown of the clover is eaten out, causing 

 it to perish. The tread of heavy cattle has the same effect. 



As a soiling crop red clover is excelled by no crop grown in the 

 South. The practice of soiling in thickly settled communities is on^ much 

 commended by agricultural writers. A half-acre of clover on a rich soil 

 will supply one cow throughout the months of June, July and August, if 

 cut off and fed in a stall, while twice the amount in pasture, according to 

 some English experimenters, will barely subsist a cow during the same 

 period; but this will depend, of course, upon the luxuriance of the growth. 

 Soiling — that is cutting the grass and feeding it green — is a very desirable 

 practice, near small towns, where many persons own small lots and de- 

 sire to keep a iniich cow. No other plant, perhaps, will produce a larger 

 flow of milk. 



EFFECTS OF CLOVER UPON SOILS-Numerous facts have 

 taught the farmers of every country where agriculture has flourished, that 



