VETCH AND CRIMSON CLOVER 187 



fected earth from some inoculated vetch field into a buck- 

 et of water. This will give a thin coating of mud on 

 each seed and the inoculation will be found efficient. 

 The seed should be sown at once without exposure to 

 light. 



Vetch and Crimson Clover. My friend, L. W. Lighty 

 of Adams Co., Pa., a shrewd, practical Dutchman, has 

 this to say in the "National Stockman and Farmer" 

 about the use of these two legumes in Pennsylvania: 



"Sow any time after the middle of July to the end of October. 

 If you never grew vetch before it may not succeed so well the first 

 year as it, like all legumes, does better on inoculated soil and the in- 

 oculation comes from the growing of the plant. My preference is 

 to sow a half-bushel of vetch and a bushel to a bushel and a half 

 of rye to the acre. If you do not care to plow early in the spring, 

 and the land is fairly fertile, a peck of vetch and three pecks of rye 

 will make quite a mass of vegetable matter. I prefer heavy seed- 

 ing so as to get a dense growth and prevent washing during win- 

 ter and it also gives me more material to plow under early in the 

 spring. Would it pay to sow vetch the last working of corn if the 

 stubble is to be sowed to wheat? No, the growth of the vetch is 

 best in cool weather, so you would have but little growth, besides 

 it would be hard to destroy all the vetch plants and they would be 

 in your wheat like cockle, and almost impossible to separate if you 

 would wish to sell the wheat. Vetch, like rye, may be a weed and 

 you do not want it in your seed or selling wheat. Would not crim- 

 son clover be preferable to vetch? It may be, in fact is, in some 

 soils preferable to vetch. I note wherever there is a good propor- 

 tion of sharp sand in the soil, crimson clover flourishes, but in the 

 clayey or shaley soils, devoid of sand, crimson clover is an unsat- 

 isfactory manurial crop because it thrives so poorly. Rye and 

 vetch are generally preferable because they grow and thrive under 

 the most adverse conditions. Being a sort of weed, they flourish 

 in spite of neglect, do not winterkill, nor do insects disturb them. 

 Crimson clover is delicate and wants things just so or it will quit. 

 I prefer the robust, rough-and-ready plant that is there when I 

 come to plow it under. If crimson clover succeeds on your soil 



