166 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



needing humus sadly. It has failed in countless in- 

 stances because of lack of inoculation. If one wishes 

 to grow it he should either inoculate with soil from 

 some successful crimson clover field or should per- 

 sist year after year in growing it on the same soil 

 till at last the inoculation comes. There seems 

 a wild clover along the Atlantic Coast that carries 

 the same bacteria as' crimson clover but this is not 

 found west of the Alleghenies. With proper inocu- 

 lation crimson clover will succeed over a far wider 

 territory than is now known or supposed. 



Melilotus or Sweet Clover. What is a weed? A 

 plant out of place? Weeds there are and weeds. If 

 one must have them, and usually, he will, he could 

 hardly have a better one than Melilotus alba, or 

 white sweet clover. There are two sorts of sweet 

 clover, one with white blooms and one with yellow. 

 The yellow-flowered sort is Melilotus officinalis. It 

 is not so good as the white nor so common. Sweet 

 clover looks like alfalfa. Indeed, it is a sort of first 

 cousin to the alfalfa plant. The main difference is 

 that it has a less deeply boring root stock and is a 

 biennial, or a two-year plant, while alfalfa may live 

 half a century. Sweet clover is a good sort of weed, 

 because it is not unsightly and it feeds the bees and 

 wherever it grows it mightily enriches land. It 

 loves lime land and hard places along roadsides and 

 on railway embankments. It will grow 6 or 8 feet 

 high in favorable places or if it is cut down close it 

 will bear seed when only just above the earth. 



It was Dr. Cyril G. Hopkins who first called at- 



