MAKING CLOVER HAY. 161 



less better than common red; as a soil-improver it has 

 some advantage, and to add to pasture mixtures it is prob- 

 ably better. One sows mammoth clover exactly as one. 

 does common red clover and the seed can not be distin- 

 guished. Seedsmen find considerable difficulty in getting 

 the seeds of these clovers pure and true to name, and this 

 difficulty arises in no small measure from the habit of the 

 farmer in failing oftentimes to designate whether the 

 seed he is offering is of the mammoth or common variety. 

 Making Clover Hay. Volumes have been written 

 about making clover hay. To make the best hay, clover 

 should be mown before the blooms have turned brown 

 and cured as much as possible without too long exposure 

 to the bright sun. It should be raked before the leaves 

 are crisp enough to powder and fall off, put up in small 

 cocks not wide at the base and as high as they can be 

 safely piled, left in cocks for a day or two to cure some- 

 what, perhaps afterward opened to the sun for an hour 

 or more and then hurried to the mow. The test of right 

 curing is when one can not by hand-twisting of a wisp of 

 the hay cause any moisture to exude. There are, how- 

 ever, a thousand contingencies of weather that will inter- 

 fere with any well-devised programme of clover hay- 

 making in the land of summer showers. One must be a 

 schemer, ready to take advantage of sun and wind, 

 prompt to act when sudden dark and portentous clouds 

 roll up in the west, patient and unstinting in cocking, 

 opening out to dry, and cocking again. The alternative 

 is to let the heads brown before cutting, mow in the 

 morning of a hot, dry day and take to the barn in the 



