LEGUMINOUS PLANTS FOE FORAGE 235 



Alsike flourishes on land too acid or too wet for other clovers, and is a 

 hardier, longer-lived plant, enduring 4 to 6 years in good soil. As it will 

 grow readily on "clover-sick" soil, it has replaced red clover on many 

 fields during recent years. Well-made alsike hay is fine-stemmed and 

 ranks among the best, being eaten with but little waste. It usually 

 yields but one cutting of hay a year, with some fall pasture in addition. 



351. White clover, Trifolium repens. This creeping perennial has 

 the widest range of any of the clovers, thriving in almost any soil from 

 Canada nearly to the Gulf of Mexico, if moisture is ample. In the North 

 it is an important plant in mixed pastures, forming a dense mat of 

 herbage and furnishing feed thruout the growing season. In the South 

 it nearly disappears in summer, but reappears in the fall, furnishing 

 winter pasturage, and thus combines well with Bermuda grass. (320) 

 Owing to its low, creeping growth it does not yield hay. 



352. Sweet clover. Biennial white sweet clover, Melilotus alba, also 

 known as melilot and Bokhara clover, is widely distributed along road- 

 sides and in waste places over southern Canada and a large part of 

 the United States, thriving best on soils rich in lime. It will grow on 

 soil so poorly drained or so worn and low in humus that alfalfa or red 

 clover will not live. Increasing experience shows that where these 

 more valuable legumes do not thrive, sweet clover, which was once 

 viewed as a weed, is of considerable value. Thousands of acres of de- 

 pleted, gullied land in Kentucky and Tennessee are being restored to 

 fertility by this legume. In the West it may be grown on hard adobe 

 soils, which it mellows with its deep root system. The plant may be 

 utilized for pasture, hay, and soilage, and has occasionally been ensiled. 



At first animals usually refuse sweet clover, for all parts of the 

 plant contain cumarin, a bitter compound with a vanilla-like odor. 

 In spring the herbage is less bitter and animals of all classes can gener- 

 ally then be taught to eat it without difficulty. When the clover is 

 cured as hay a large part of the cumarin is volatilized, the hay thus 

 being less bitter than the green plants. 



Sweet clover seed should be thickly sown so that the stems will not 

 grow coarse, and the crop should be cut when the first blossoms appear, 

 or even before, since after this stage they rapidly grow woody. Since 

 the stems are quite juicy at this stage of maturity, and are also solid, 

 instead of hollow, like those of red clover, sweet clover is rather difficult 

 to cure into good hay. Unless it is carefully cured the leaves become 

 dry and brittle before the stems are sufficiently cured, and hence shatter 

 badly. The first season one cutting and the second, two cuttings of hay 

 can be secured in the North, and often three in the South. The crop 

 should be cut at least 6 inches from the ground, for the new shoots 

 grow out not from the crown, as in red clover, but from buds on the 

 stems. The hay is satisfactory for horses, cattle, and sheep. 24 (508, 615, 

 769, 859) 



*U. S. D. A. Farmers' Bui. 1005. 



