180 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



is a lime-loving plant. It will grow anywhere that the 

 soil is filled with carbonate of lime; rich or poor, sweet 

 clover will enrich a lime soil. It can not be established 

 on a soil deficient in lime. It must be inoculated in or- 

 der to thrive anywhere, but inoculation in right soils 

 comes easily and soon, whether artificially applied or not. 

 It is a splendid forager for food and if it has its lime- 

 hunger satisfied is not exacting in other things, and is, 

 indeed, far less exacting than any other legume that I 

 know. 



Sweet Clover Nowhere a Pest. I have never seen 

 sweet clover do injury to any cultivated crop. In the 

 meadow it disappears completely under ordinary mow- 

 ings, since it can not seed. In pastures it seldom comes, 

 since animals graze it when young and prevent its seed- 

 ing. Along ditches, roadsides and in waste ground it 

 may grow thick and rank, but there it is better than 

 weeds since it feeds the bees and is beautiful when young. 

 Men unused to it are sometimes annoyed or frightened 

 if it comes in their new-sown alfalfa meadows. Nearly 

 all western-grown alfalfa seed contains more or less sweet 

 clover and few can distinguish between the seeds, nor is 

 it possible to separate them. The melilotus will do no 

 harm in alfalfa and will disappear in two years of ordi- 

 nary use of an alfalfa meadow. 



The Use of Szveet Clover. I have watched for years 

 the steady spread of sweet clover over certain hillsides 

 and mountainsides of Kentucky. When first I knew 

 them they were washed, gullied and nearly barren. They 

 are stony hillsides and contain much carbonate of lime. 

 Now they carry thousands of fields and patches of sweet 



