January, 1915. 



Amarican l^ee Journal 



ent. It will grow luxuriantly on gullied 

 and eroded hillsides that are so low in 

 organic matter that nothing else will 

 grow there. Hence, it is a most im- 

 portant plant for the improvement of 

 waste lands. The thousands of acres 

 of abandoned, eroded land could be 

 improved better by sweet clover than 

 any other crop. 



.Sweet clover is as sensitive to acidity 

 in the soil as alfalfa, and the same soil 

 treatment is required as for alfalfa. To 

 put the soil in good condition to grow 

 either alfalfa or sweet clover, three or 

 four tons of ground limestone per acre 

 should be applied to most of the soils 

 of southern Illinois. In the central 

 and northern part of the State, practi- 

 cally all the timber soil and the rolling 

 part of the prairie land is acid or be- 

 coming so, and one or two tons of 

 limestone are necessary for complete 

 success with sweet clover. Many fail- 

 ures from shortage of limestone are 

 attributed to other causes. 



A simple test for the presence of 

 limestope is to pour hydrochloric acid 

 directly on the soil. If effervescence 

 results, the soil contains limestone 

 and is not acid. Another test is 

 to use blue litmus paper. Make 

 a ball of the moist soil, break it open 

 and insert a strip of blue litmus paper, 

 pressing the soil together again. Leave 

 for 5 or 10 minutes and if the paper 

 changes to red, the soil is acid. 



SEEDING SWEET CLOVER SEED. 



Seed may be purchased in two forms, 

 hulled and unhulled ; that is, still en- 

 closed in the shriveled pod. The former 

 is much more satisfactory in almost 

 every way. In this condition the seed 

 resembles alfalfa seed. The unhulled 

 seed contains besides the shriveled 

 pods around the seeds more or less 

 impurities, such as sticks, etc., which 

 render it difficult to sow evenly. 



As a general rule sweet clover does 

 not give a high percent of germination 

 because of the dense seed coat which 

 the moisture cannot penetrate readily. 

 These are .commonly spoken of as 

 hard seeds. Nearly all seed contains 

 a quantity of these that do not germi- 

 nate the first year. They are more 

 abundant in southern grown seed. In 

 22 samples from differetit sources, 

 southern grown seed contained TO and 

 northern grown seed showed 43 per- 

 cent of hard seed. The germination 

 was 14 and 37 percent respectively. At 

 the Ohio Experiment Station the^ aver- 

 age percent of germination of 37 sam- 

 ples tested by the botanical department 

 was 29.14. Methods of scratching or 

 scouring the seed coat to permit water 

 penetration are devised which will 

 largely overcome the difficulty of poor 

 germination. This fact of poor germi- 

 nation requires the use of a much larger 

 amount of seed than would otherwise 

 be necessary. It is advisable to sow 

 from 12 to -15 pounds per acre of hulled 

 seed and from 20 to 25 pounds of un- 

 hulled seed, 



TIME OF SEEDING AND SEED BED. 



The time of seeding varies somewhat 

 with the nurse crop. Early spring is 

 the best time. The seed should be 

 sown in the same way as red clover 

 with a light seeding of oats, or still 

 better, barley. When seeded with 



wheat it may be sown in January, Feb- 

 ruary or early March so that the freez- 

 ing and thawing may bury the seed in 

 the soil. This early seeding also gives 

 longer time for the moisture to soften 

 and penetrate the seed coat and give 

 germination. Seeding in the latter 

 part of July may be practiced success- 

 fully if the season is favorable. Late 

 summer or fall seeding is not advisable 

 in this latitude as it is liable to heave 

 out during the winter. 



The preparation of the seed bed 

 seems to be of secondary importance. 

 The crop does well on a well prepared 

 seed bed, but does surprisingly well on 

 a poorly prepared seed bed. Weeds 

 are the great enemy of young sweet 

 clover, and it is much more important 

 that the soil be free of weeds than that 

 the crop have a good seed bed. A 

 nurse crop helps to keep the weeds in 

 subjection. On gullied hill land it is 

 not necessary to attempt to prepare a 

 seed bed. The seed may be sown in 

 late winter or a number of young 

 plants transplanted, and in a few years 

 transform this waste land into produc- 

 tive pasture land. It must be remem- 

 bered that limestone is necessary on 

 nearly all eroded land in the State. 



INOCULATION. 



Sweet clover being a legume requires 

 the presence of certain bacteria in the 

 soil to produce satisfactory results. 

 This organism has been pretty gener- 

 ally distributed along the roadsides 

 with the mud carried on vehicles and 

 on bottom lands by floods. The higher 



cultivated lands of the State do not 

 generally contain this germ, so inocu- 

 lation is necessary. Either one or two 

 methods may be employed. 



1. Soil transfer method : Soil is ob- 

 tained from where well infected sweet 

 clover or alfalfa has grown the past 

 year and scattered over land to be 

 seeded, at the rate of from 300 to 500 

 pounds per acre. This may be done 

 with a shovel. The harrow should fol- 

 low immediately to cover the soil and 

 prevent the sunshine from destroying 

 the bacteria and also to distribute the 

 inoculating material somewhat uni- 

 fqrmlv through the soil. 



2. Glue solution method: In this 

 method the infected sweet clover or 

 alfalfa soil with its bacteria is glued to 

 the seed and inoculation produced in 

 that way. About eight ounces of fur- 

 niture or carpenter's glue should be 

 dissolved in a gallon of hot water, 

 which, when sufficiently cool, should 

 be sprinkled on the sweet-clover seed 

 at the rate of about one quart to a 

 bushel of seed. The seed should then 

 be stirred so as to moisten it uniformly. 

 About three quarts of the dry, pulver- 

 ized soil should be added and thor- 

 oughly mixed with the seed. If the 

 work has been well done each seed 

 will have a coating of infected soil 

 around it. The seed should be dried 

 and is then ready for sowing. A safe 

 precaution to be taken is not to allow 

 the sun to shine on seed before it is 

 covered. 



The fact that sweet clover is growing 



FIG. J.-CUP PLANT OR ROSIN WEED 



