ESTABLISHING SWEET CLOVER 181 



clover and present a very beautiful appearance in spring 

 and early summer. Sheep, pigs and cattle graze this 

 melilotus and stock-buyers comment that they get their 

 best lambs from these farms. Further, on these once 

 bare hillsides, the bluegrasses are coming in, following 

 in the wake of sweet clover. It is made into hay, and 

 horses, cows and sheep eat it with relish. It is neces- 

 sary for animals to learn to eat the plant, and probably 

 they would always prefer the other clovers, yet they 

 thrive as well, apparently on the sweet clover as on 

 any other forage. In the limestone soils of Alabama 

 and Mississippi sweet clover is doing wonders, and some 

 farmers in those regions claim it to be more profitable 

 than alfalfa. In Colorado and other western states it is 

 being sown on very hard adobe soils to prepare them for 

 alfalfa, the practice being to turn it under when at the 

 height of its growth. It is found to have great power 

 to mellow hard adobe soils. 



Establishing Szveet Clover. Only on soils too poor or 

 wet for alfalfa would I suggest sowing sweet clover. The 

 seed is sown in much the same manner as alfalfa in the 

 fall in southern climates and in the spring or summer 

 at the North. The land should be well limed if it is at all 

 lime-hungry. Carbonate of lime gives best results with 

 sweet clover. What sweet clover especially does is to 

 secure nitrogen from the air by means of its bacteria, 

 and these live only in soils rich in lime. It must have 

 inoculation or it is a poor, sickly thing. Inoculation 

 can be had by sowing soil taken from a rank-growing 

 sweet clover patch or from an established alfalfa field. 

 Wherever nature has put lime in the soil or one can buy 



