The Hay Crop 251 



getting hay crops that will be the envy of your neighbors 



who run their land to exhaustion in hay. 



For the dairyman or stock feeder who is 



Making Hay ^^^ especially interested in the sale of hay, 

 from Legumes , . , , „ , / 



only the various legume plants offer a hay far 



superior for his use to the usual grass hays. 



Not only are they far superior as hay, but the growing of 



these plants should be the main rehance of the general 



farmer for the nitrogen he needs for the succeeding crops. 



And while for the hay market the legumes are not so well 



adapted as the grasses, there is a growing interest in them 



in the markets, and those who keep family cows in villages 



and towns are more disposed to seek these in preference 



to the grass hays as better suited to the feeding of cows. 



^ ^ ^, The chief of all the legume crops over a 



Red Clover , , , ^ • „ . 



very large part of the country, especially in 



the Middle and Northern States, is red clover, trijolium 

 pratense. What is known as the medium red clover is the 

 kind most generally used. As we have noted heretofore 

 there has been in all sections of the country where clover 

 formerly thrived, an increasing complaint of the failure 

 to get a good stand, or a failure after a stand has been 

 secured to get the crop to survive the first summer. We 

 hear from various parts of the country of what is called 

 clover-sick land. In some sections of the Middle South, 

 especially in Tennessee, trouble has been had with a fun- 

 gus disease that affects the plant seriously. But as a rule 

 the failure of clover is due to one or both of two causes, 

 the exhaustion or rather the deficiency in the soil of the 

 plant foods that clover especially needs, phosphoric acid 

 and potash, or soil acidity that prevents the success of the 



