164 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



it twines about it and sending in rootlets into it never 

 afterward depends on the soil for sustenance. 



Dodder can not all be cleaned from clover seed by use 

 of the best machinery. If one finds it in one's field one 

 should at once cut off the infected spots, and leaving 

 the plants lie on the earth let them dry a few days, then 

 add straw to them and burn over the spot where the 

 dodder grew. In this manner one may easily eradicate 

 the pest and prevent one's soil becoming infested with 

 dodder seed. It seems little less than criminal to cut 

 clover seed from a dodder-infested field, yet evidently 

 some farmers do or we should not so often find it in 

 clover seed. Laws insuring the purity of agricultural 

 seeds have been put on the statute books in several states. 



Clover and Timothy for Feeding. Hunt says : "The 

 total amount of digestible nutrients in 100 pounds of 

 clover hay is almost identical with that of 100 pounds 

 of timothy hay. The Pennsylvania station has shown 

 that the full value, i. e., the total energy that can be 

 set free in the body of a steer, is nearly the same in 

 both kinds of hay. The net available energy, however, 

 of clover hay when fed to a steer as a maintenance ration 

 is found to be considerably less than that of timothy hay. 

 On the other hand, clover hay furnishes more than three 

 times as large a proportion of proteids as does timothy 

 hay. The practical application of these experiments 

 would seem to be that, for the purpose of balancing the 

 ration, clover hay has a high feeding value for growing 

 or milking ruminants; but where the ration has already 

 sufficient protein for the needs of the animal, clover hay 



