CLOVERS AND ALLIED FORAGE PLANTS 103 



land, but doing well on various classes of soils. Its herbage 

 is greedily eaten by all kinds of stock, and dairy cattle thrive 

 and milk well on it. If cut when in flower it makes capital 

 hay or good ensilage, and is a useful plant to plough into the 

 ground as green manure. When this tare is grown for green 

 feed it is sometimes sown with Barley, Oats or Rye, which 

 support its numerous slender stems, thus helping to secure a 

 better and heavier crop, and at the same time making it easier 

 to be cut and fed to stock. If the tare is cultivated alone one 

 and a-half to two bushels of seed should be sown to the acre, 

 but if grown with the above-mentioned crops, one bushel of 

 seed, or a little more will suffice for a similar area. This plant 

 is acclimatised in some pastures. 



Trefoil (Medicago denticulata) has spread naturally over 

 a larger area of country than any other member of the Pea 

 flowering family. After autumn rains this annual plant 

 springs up in great profusion, sometimes partially covering 

 millions of acres with nutritious herbage, of which all classes 

 of stock are remarkably fond and on which they readily fatten. 

 In November and December this trefoil usually dies, leaving 

 the land where it has been growing strewn with seed pods 

 popularly known as "burrs," and although these are objec- 

 tionable from a woolgrower's point of view, they are good 

 feed for sheep which will not only keep in fine condition, but 

 grow fat on them. 



The Spotted - Leaved Trefoil (M. maculata) is equally 

 valuable as feed for stock, but it is not nearly as plentiful. 

 Two burrless Trefoils (M. orbicularis and M . scutdlata) have 

 been cultivated, and are also growing in some pastures as 

 escapees, but they do not spread much. They are excellent 

 forage plants of which sheep are particularly fond. In the 

 coldest districts another Trefoil (M. lupulina) of biennial 



